Queen Bee Goes Home Again

by Haywood Smith

  Phil stood back, smug in his silence. The damage had been done.

  “No,” I argued. “He says so, but what if he’s lying? What if this is all some self-serving ploy?”

  Connor smoothed back the hair from my forehead, then wiped the tears from my cheek with his thumb. “What if he’s telling the truth?”

  I curled against Connor, willing him to put his arms around me to protect me from Phil. “He’s lying. He always lies.” I wept into his shoulder.

  Connor exhaled heavily, his arms still at his sides. “Before things go any further between us, we both need to know the answer.” He stepped away from me. “I have to pray about this, and so do you.” He shot a look at Phil. “God’s will be done.” Then he left.

  Wimp! Why wouldn’t he fight for me?

  Phil came closer, as if claiming me as his prize, but before he got too close, I shoved the flowers into his arms, then hauled off and slapped the molasses out of him.

  Major ouch! I waggled my hand to ease the sting.

  But instead of reacting with anger, as I expected, he laid down the flowers, then stepped back, his hand to his cheek. “I deserved that, and more. Get it out of your system, Lin. I can take it. But I’m not going away. I can’t. We belong together.” He started for the door. “I’ll call you, after you’ve had some time to think this over.”

  He stood in the open doorway, letting in a cool breeze. “I love you, Lin. Just the way you are. I was a fool ever to have betrayed that.”

  Then he left, getting into a very expensive Mercedes convertible and driving away.

  Ruined. He’d ruined everything.

  I sank to my knees and sobbed.

  Then, in the fog of pain and disappointment, a single question formed, clear and distinct, in Connor’s voice: What if Phil was telling the truth?

  Everything inside me rebelled at the possibility, but my soul told me I needed to know God’s will in this, not my own.

  Phil had challenged me with the one thing I couldn’t deny. We had promised God to stay together till death parted us, and when I’d divorced, I had broken that vow, too. Hadn’t I?

  Forgive, and be free, Connor’s voice echoed in my head.

  God, I can’t. Help. Help me. Help!

  What was I supposed to do now?

  When no answer came, I forced myself erect, then went out the front door and headed for my apartment. Once there, I locked the door, pulled off my jeans, then crawled into bed, planning to stay there forever.

  No brandy this time. No ice cream. Just denial.

  Forty-seven

  This time, I lasted five days. The good news was, I lost eight pounds. The bad news was, my classes started on the sixth.

  So on the morning of the fifth, I took my minivan to the office supply store near the mall and bought a rolling briefcase big enough to hold my books. Then I set about rehabilitating myself: the works at Flora’s, then a mani-pedi. Then I found some black, slim-leg Levi’s stretch jeans on sale for twenty-five dollars a pair at JC Penney, and a cute jacket on sale at Chico’s. Which led to a sassy new pair of comfortable Life Stride flats at Shoes R Us.

  Armored to face academia, I laid out my clothes for the next morning, then nuked my supper. The bell went off just as a knock sounded at my door.

  Connor?

  I rose, heart pounding.

  But it wasn’t Connor. Tommy stood on the tiny stoop, dwarfed by a glass cylinder packed with tulips, purple this time. He barely had room to let me open the screen door.

  Inside, he plunked the vase on the counter. “We’re running out of room. He sends ’em twice a day. Must cost a fortune.”

  I groaned, then stepped on the garbage can pedal to open the lid, and dropped the whole thing inside, slamming the top over stems and blooms alike.

  Tommy nodded. “I get that, oh, yes, I do.”

  Then he motioned for me to sit, moving behind me to get my supposedly healthy dinner out of the microwave. “Here. Eat. You look scrawny.”

  “Scrawny?” I protested. “I’ll have you know, I fit comfortably into a size twelve pair of jeans today. I couldn’t wear a size twelve when I was twelve.”

  “You’ve got big bones,” he said.

  True.

  He reached into the refrigerator for a couple of bottles of cold spring water. Handing me one, he sat facing me at the little table, then took a long swig of his own. “So. Are you excited about tomorrow?”

  I looked down, toying with my fake mashed potatoes. “Phil pretty much took the wind out of my sails about anything.”

  “I hear that,” he said with sympathy. “But you’re making a new beginning tomorrow. Nobody can take that away from you, not if you choose otherwise.”

  I nodded, wishing I could muster up some enthusiasm, but still feeling dead inside. “Actually, I’m looking forward to the distraction.”

  Tommy took another swig of cold water. “Good stuff.”

  Then he told me what he’d come to say. “Miss Mamie’s really sorry for butting in. I tried to stop her, but she had the notion that Connor would stand up for you and send Phil packing.”

  An elephant sat on my sternum. “Unfortunately, Phil used scripture to do the opposite.”

  “I heard,” Tommy admitted. “Made me want to puke.”

  And Connor hadn’t stood up to him.

  Tears welled at the backs of my eyes, surprising me. I’d thought I’d cried them all away. “Can we not talk about this?”

  “Sorry.” Tommy patted my hand. “The Mame has decided to make it up to you by having a maid two days a week, so you can study and Carla can work.”

  “Wow.” I’d already forgiven her. It was God and Phil I was having trouble with. And Connor. “That’s really putting her money where her mouth is.”

  “Actually, I brought in a friend of mine who’s a male nurse. Straight. Thirty. Tall. Good-looking. Works four ten-hour days at the hospital, then picks up extra cash cleaning houses, so he can buy his own place with cash before he’s forty. He does really well, because he actually follows instructions.” He waggled his brows. “And treats old ladies like queens. He had the Mame in the palm of his hand from the moment he cleaned the sink just the way she told him to.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at the picture that evoked. “Good for him. And her.”

  “So you’ll be free to study,” he concluded.

  “All I want to do is study. Not think. Not pray. Just study and learn.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  I stood, then bent to hug my brother’s shoulders from behind. “I sure am glad you’re here.”

  Tommy patted my arms. “You, too, Sissie-ma-noo-noo.” He faced me. “The world’s a bigger place than your skin, Lin. And it doesn’t start and stop on this block. There’s lots waiting for you out there.”

  I wanted to believe that, but I was still a prisoner of my emotions. “I’ll try to look out, not in,” I promised.

  Forgive and be free.

  Right. I couldn’t even forgive Connor for letting a single piece of scripture drive him away.

  So I couldn’t forgive. Yet.

  But I could go back to college.

  So on the very next morning, I did just that, and boy, did I learn a lot. Not so much in the lectures as between them.

  Boy, had college changed.

  Forty-eight

  I left forty minutes early for campus, and good thing, because the parking lots were almost full when I got there at seven-thirty. After a half hour of searching, I finally found a spot in the lot beside the Humanities Building and hurried to make my first class in time.

  Along the way, I sized up every student and professor I saw. Apparently, being back on academic turf was all it took to activate my long-buried adolescent self-consciousness and judgmentalness.

  I evaluated and criticized every student I passed, then criticized myself for doing it.

  First Connor, now this.

  Don’t think about Connor!

  Only the old
er students—nontraditional, I corrected—wore coats against the wind and cold. The rest had on drab hoodies with jeans so tight, they looked sprayed on, many of them deliberately ragged.

  I really couldn’t tell much about my fellow students beyond that, with their heads covered and hands dug deeply into the front pockets of their hoodies.

  By the time I got to the entrance, I realized that the only people with rolling briefcases appeared to be professors. The others all toted backpacks.

  I took the elevator to the third floor for my Communications class. When I got there, all the seats against the far wall and back were filled with semicomatose students, so I claimed the first seat in the next-to-farthest row, parking my rolly thing in front of me, then pulling out my pen and legal pad.

  I was the only one present wearing nice clothes, so I stuck out like a pink-iced cupcake in a platter of brownies. Since my daily uniform was black travel pants, cotton knit tops that varied with the season, and colorful jackets or long sweaters, I had plenty of nice yet comfortable clothes, but very few jeans. And my jeans were dark, not ripped and faded like the others’. Not that I’d be caught dead in ripped, faded denim.

  A snicker sounded from behind me, but when I looked around, nobody made eye contact.

  Then I realized they all had laptops or computer tablets.

  Embarrassed, but mad at myself for being so, I turned back to peer at the lectern.

  So I was a dodo. Big deal.

  A laptop or tablet computer wouldn’t do me any good. I’d tried again and again to learn to type without looking, but my brain was too stubborn to do it, and wasn’t likely to change now. I had to see and hear things, then write them down, to memorize.

  Embarrassed nonetheless, I turned around and waited for class to start.

  A cute little blond girl in the row beside me, her computer plugged into the wall, introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Meredith. This is my first day.”

  I turned and smiled, whispering back, “Me, too.”

  She nodded, clearly grateful to find a friendly face. “I have to sit by the outlet because my battery conked out for good.”

  “If I get here first, I’ll save your seat,” I told her.

  Dimples appeared in her cheeks. “Thanks. I take care of my mama, so I can’t work. So money’s really tight.”

  Such ingenuous lucidity stirred my sympathy.

  “I just lost my house and had to move back in with my mother,” I confided, wondering if the girl’s mother was ill, or a drunk. I didn’t mention that I had chosen to stay with Mama of my own free will when we’d found Daddy’s treasure.

  We both nodded, then she went back to her computer.

  The room might have been in any high school, the chalkboards replaced by dry-marker whiteboards, except the teacher didn’t have a desk, just a hypermodern rolling podium with a long electrical cord plugged into an outlet, and a tall swivel stool behind it.

  Almost all the seats were filled when a tall, sandy-haired middle-aged man with glasses strode in. He had on a baggy wool sport coat over a gray pullover sweater, from which peeked a subdued plaid, button-down collar. Baggy, faded jeans and black running shoes completed his outfit, making him almost indistinguishable from his students, except for his jacket and absence of rips in his jeans.

  Once he settled on the stool, he opened his notebook (a real one, not electronic), and commenced. “Okay. Please choose the seats you wish to stay in, because I’m going to put your names on the grid, here, and call roll for the first and last time. After that, I can tell who’s missing from the chart. And believe me, your absences will be noted.”

  He glanced up, seeing that we’d all stayed where we were. “Change if you want to, or forever hold your peace.”

  Nobody moved a whit except the boys against the back wall, who planted their feet in a territorial gesture to claim their places.

  Must be Baptists. They love the back row.

  Don’t say Baptist, my inner self chided. I shoved the thought of Connor back into its tiny closet and slammed the door.

  “Breedlove,” the professor called out, and my hand was halfway up before the girl next to me answered.

  Breedlove! Why had I done that? I wasn’t a Breedlove anymore. Hadn’t been for forty-one years. I was Lin Scott.

  By the time the professor got to the ss, half the class was dozing in the warm classroom.

  “Scott,” he called out.

  “Here.” Nobody registered my answer but the teacher.

  I was hoping to ace the course. I’d done lots of speaking for charity events, so I prayed it wouldn’t be hard.

  “As you can see from your schedules,” he said, “I am Dr. Ellis. I have twenty-five years’ experience teaching creative writing in Ohio, but because my doctorate is in communications, the powers that be in this institution have insisted I teach only communications. As an adjunct,” he emphasized, clearly unhappy over the whole thing.

  Uh-oh. He had a Ph.D. and twenty-five years of teaching experience, and he couldn’t get a full-time job with benefits in a community college?

  So much for any aspirations I had about working there someday. High school, it would have to be.

  Our instructor handed out copies of the course syllabus, and I was dismayed to see three lessons—back-to-back just after midterms—that set off alarm bells: PowerPoint Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. All of it, in less than two weeks!

  Aaaaggggh!

  I struggled to remain outwardly calm, because nobody else seemed to be upset.

  Maybe I could find somebody to give me a crash course, so I could practice, first.

  That was the thing about trying to master new skills at my age: I needed time and a tutor to distill the instructions, so I could write each important step down to remember it.

  Ask Cathy about a tutor for PowerPoint, I wrote in the top margin, above the date, page, and class name I’d already put on the first ten pages so I wouldn’t have to do it while I was taking notes.

  Dr. Ellis hit a button on the lectern, projecting an overview of the syllabus to the whiteboard. “As you can see, you will be responsible for giving three presentations, the last of which is integrated with PowerPoint visuals.”

  Definitely needed that tutor. And while I was at it, maybe I could find somebody to take me through the ins and outs of the student Web site. I kept forgetting to go there to check my student e-mail, and when I did, I still couldn’t find half the stuff I was looking for.

  Class time was only half done when Dr. Ellis finished the syllabus. “My e-mail address is at the top of your syllabus. If something truly dire happens—like the flu, or a sick child, or a death in your immediate family, contact me by e-mail so we can work something out. My objective is for you to learn how to state your case clearly, with good evidence, before an audience, not to punish you when life intervenes. But do not call me. I don’t ever answer my phone messages.”

  Do not call him! E-mail on school Web site, I wrote in caps at the top of the page.

  He looked at the class. “Lucky you. Class dismissed.”

  As I gathered my things, he looked up from the lectern and asked, “What brings a woman like you here?”

  Caught off guard, I sputtered, “I want to get my degree.”

  He frowned. “In what?”

  Please. Bug off!

  But he was the teacher, so I answered with a defensive, “English.”

  He shook his head. “Haven’t you heard all the jokes about people with English majors driving cabs and mowing lawns and—”

  “I want to teach English in high school,” I said, summoning my inner duchess. “Preferably in Mimosa Branch.”

  Again, he shook his head at my naivety. “Did you check to see if they might have any openings by the time you finish?” he challenged.

  Of course not, but I wasn’t about to tell him. “You’ll find,” I said, my tone icy, “that I always do my homework.”

  He broke into a grin. “I like how you went all aloof
when I pried. Very good.” With that, he headed for the door. “See you on Thursday.”

  Relieved that he’d left, I gave him a long head start, then hiked over to the student center for some coffee in my unexpected break. Inside the eating area, small groups of matching kids took up most of the tables: geeks, goths, rednecks, Hispanics, Vietnamese, popular girls and guys, wallflowers, loners, et cetera, based on their appearance. Since I didn’t fit into any of those categories, I found a two-top near the wall and settled in to watch.

  On one end of the cafeteria, a game room offered a maze of computer stations, lit to varying degrees, that allowed the students to play Internet games or do research. Whenever the door opened, the sound of electronic bombs and gunfire escaped. Based on the screens I could see, only a couple of Asians were actually doing assignments.

  When I finished my coffee, I headed down the wide hallway that led to Registration. On the right, all the special-use rooms had glass walls onto the corridor. Opposite the student bookstore, one room was reserved for “multicultural” students, even though all the seats were taken by African Americans, which didn’t seem very multicultural to me. Next to that, a room marked NONTRADITIONAL STUDENTS provided an island of calm for people like me. Checking it out, I found six women inside, all but one of them using the computers hooked up to the school’s network, with several small tables and chairs at the back, and a long one in the center covered by the spread-out papers and books of a very heavy woman who looked about forty and didn’t make eye contact, bless her heart.

  I sat at a computer on the shelf against the wall and slowly managed to access my student e-mail. Fortunately, nothing had come in since the night before.

  Satisfied that I’d managed it without any help, I signed off, then started for my next class with fifteen minutes to spare.

  Smile, I had to remind myself. Be friendly, no matter what they think of you.

  Easier said than done. I felt like a walking anachronism, which I was.

  On the way back to the quad, I discovered that the handicapped exit buttons didn’t work, so I had to back into both doors, bumping some of the incoming students, to get my briefcase outside.

  Report broken doors to maintenance, I made a mental note, even though I knew I’d forget it the minute I got to class.