“About what, babe?” Donny says, examining his foot. “We never had this conversation. You’re just a teacher with a bad eval who has to blame somebody. Maybe you hit on me, and I turned you down. ‘A woman scorned’ and all that.”
“R.D. had no right to tell you about my evaluation.”
“What evaluation?” Donny says with a wink.
With a two-fingered salute, he moves out of range.
“Donny!” I call loudly.
He turns to face me.
“I know your buddies spray-painted my car. Keep them the hell away from my family, or you’ll be sorry.”
Smirking, Donny says, “Your nuts, babe. You need a shrink.”
I have nothing to lose, so I add, “Do you know anything about Sara Stepanek?”
Donny stiffens. “You mean the kid that ran away?”
“Yeah.”
With a snort of disgust, he says, “Sure. Why not? Give the cops a call. Tell ’em I’ve got her locked in my basement.”
He saunters away. I stand outside the men’s restroom, hyperventilating and cursing under my breath.
I want to follow him, scream epithets, smash a fist in his face, and, when the cops haul me off to jail, rejoice knowing I’ll be vindicated. But, of course, I do none of those things. Donny is a skilled liar and I, no doubt, would end up looking like a crazed female. But that doesn’t mean this is over. I believe in karma. My day will come.
Chapter 16
Wednesday
So, me and Arnie are thinking,” Nick begins, his eyes wide and hopeful behind his glasses.
“Arnie and I,” I interject.
“Whatever,” he says with a dismissive wave. “Anyway, Arnie and I were thinking since today’s the last day of school and we have early dismissal and …”
I knew what was coming.
“His essay’s done, and he could drive me around to check some storage units, and it wouldn’t be like skipping school if we had your permission, and I just know I’m going to find it,” he says in a rush.
Images of Susan in a towering rage loom large. “Nope.”
“But why? You know we won’t be screwing around. Don’t you trust me?” His voice is filled with righteous indignation.
“Nick,” I say. “Think about it. You and Arnie are driving around during school time when suddenly a senile old man of forty runs a red light, hits you broadside, and sends you both to the hospital. My butt’s on the line, not yours, my boy.”
His lip curls in scorn. “That won’t happen, and you know it.”
“Could and might,” I say. “Drop it.”
With an eye roll and a snort of disgust, he looks at Arnie and shakes his head. Arnie sighs and returns to Flowers in the Attic. Nick slouches to his computer and continues inputting test scores.
After a breakfast meeting with Dorothy Simonson, mild-mannered school librarian by day and union rep extraordinaire on her own time, my attitude has improved. Dorothy assured me she would deal with R.D. In fact, she was so eager I believe she has an ax to grind. But, instead of dishing the dirt, she admonished, “Remember, do not sign that evaluation. If you do, you’re agreeing with every bit of his twisted logic.”
Now my main problem is keeping peace until noon when, after a quick lunch in the cafeteria, my students will be free of my daily aggravation. Most of them, behind in credits, will join me for summer school.
I dip into my bag of teacher tricks to fill the time. We play American history Jeopardy, guys against girls, a real fave with my crew. I throw out an answer: “The philosophy behind the Western expansion,” and one of my bright little girls chirps, “What is Manifest Destiny?”
At 11:45, violence very nearly breaks out when Crystal, emboldened by the fact that she’s not required to attend summer school, announces, “You guys are so flippin’ stupid you couldn’t find your peckers without a map.”
I give the guys the last fifteen minutes to defend themselves provided it’s done in a gentlemanly fashion. The dismissal bell rings just as Wesley crows, “If we’re so flip-pin’ stupid, how come you chicks are always making us go to dances and stuff?”
In my opinion, a fine rebuttal.
They pour from the room still arguing the fine points, though the heat has dissipated.
Without a fare-thee-well, Nick takes off with Arnie, who charges through the crowd with one enormous hand on Nick’s frail shoulder. Big Bird and Woodstock on a mission.
Jimmy, usually the first to bolt, lags behind, opening and closing the rings in his binder to insert the work I returned corrected and graded. He looks up to make sure the room’s empty before meandering up to my desk. Desperately in need of sustenance, my stomach growls angrily.
“Guess I’ll see you in a couple of weeks,” Jimmy says.
“You bet. Enjoy your time off.” I sidle toward the door. Jimmy shuffles behind.
“About Sara,” he says.
I stop and turn to face him. He snaps his mouth shut and looks at the floor. I wait, though I want to scream, “What?”
“I know what happened to her.”
“You know where she is?” The words come out shrill and accusatory.
Jimmy flinches.
I inhale and let it out, willing myself to speak in calm, soothing voice. My God, is it possible Jimmy knows Sara’s whereabouts? After all, it was Jimmy who told me about Peggy Mooney.
“Let’s sit down, and you can tell me about it.” I motion to the student desks.
Spooked by my initial reaction, Jimmy positions himself with two desks between us. “What I mean is, something bad happened to her a few years ago, and I thought maybe it has something to do with her disappearing and all. She was getting jumped into a gang and she got—she got …” His voice trails off, his freckled face glowing with embarrassment.
“Raped,” I finish. My glimmer of hope flickers and dies.
He exhales noisily. “Yeah, that. You know about that, huh?”
I nod. “Do other people know about it? Here at school, I mean?”
His eyes roll wildly. “I ain’t told nobody, Ms. Thome. Not even Sara. Honest!”
I bite back my usual response to bad grammar. “Nobody’s blaming you, Jimmy. But it might be helpful to know who told you.”
“A guy I work with. She used to go to his school. Sara came in one time. After she left, he told me about the—the—”
“Rape,” I say. The word bounces around the silent room, harsh and ugly.
“So anyways,” Jimmy says. “Ya want me to ask around? See if she’s hooked up with the gang again? I miss her, ya know?”
His eyes finally meet mine, and it’s like looking into a sea of raw emotion. I know the price Jimmy’s paid to survive. Abuse by a stepfather, aided and abetted by his slut of a mother. Petty crimes leading to grand theft auto, followed by incarceration. But now, he’s landed in a stable foster home with good, caring people. Perhaps in Sara he sees the reflection of his own life, her fragile beauty a subtle reminder of his lost childhood. Or maybe he’s just a teenage boy with a crush.
“Can you ask around without getting too involved? I don’t want you messing with gangsters.”
He blinks hard and thrusts his chin out, arming himself for the world outside my classroom. “Don’t worry about me. Nobody messes with the Jimster.”
In truth, his words do little to dampen my concern. Jimmy isn’t very tough. His big mouth and belligerent attitude attract bullies like metal filings to a magnet. Fortunately, he can usually talk his way out of trouble.
“Just be careful,” I admonish as he heads out. He turns and gives me one of his rare smiles, his eyes squinting almost shut, his cheeks like sun-burnished apples.
“You’re a case, Ms. Thome.”
In a weak moment, I agreed to a mid-week karaoke performance at Mystic Meadows Retirement Home. I try to get out of it but Grandma insists, “Just a few moments of your time to give some oldsters pleasure before they pass on. That’s all I ask.”
Grandma Sybil�
�s a dirty fighter. She knows how to push my guilt buttons even though my mother installed them.
Halfway through our routine, in walks Sloan. He stands, smirk firmly in place, at the rear of the ballroom. Bud, our host for the evening zeroes in on him right away. Pushing a snazzy red walker, he gives an officious blast on his bicycle horn and walks quickly toward Sloan. I continue singing “Midnight Train to Georgia.” Sloan points at me.
Bud claps him on the back and grins.
I pause for a moment and glare at Sloan while Grandma and Dodie do the Pips proud, shaking their groove things in perfect rhythm. Sloan snags a folding chair, turns it around, and straddles it, never taking his eyes off mine. I suddenly feel like I’m showing too much skin in my short, black skirt, slinky off-the-shoulder top, spike heels, and big hair.
The oldsters take in our silent exchange and poke each other with bony elbows, silver heads swiveling to and fro. Never has there been such excitement at Mystic Meadows.
I decide to ignore Sloan and throw myself into the next two songs, vamping with the Pips until we have the crowd on their wobbly feet, arms in the air, swaying to the music.
Sloan hangs around for cookies and punch. I keep my distance under the guise of accepting accolades from my new groupies. He’s attracted a few of his own. He’s surrounded by Grandma and a cluster of sweet-faced old ladies offering him tidbits and sweetmeats. Sloan samples each offering before edging away. I see him coming, and I go in search of Bud, who’s dismantling Mystic Meadows’ amplification system and stowing it on an antique metal audio-visual cart.
“Can I help?”
Bud peers at me over the top of his glasses and then checks his watch. “It is getting late.”
It’s 7:55.
Bud fumbles in his pocket and withdraws a key festooned with a loop of red yarn. “Now listen, young lady. This key unlocks the storage room in the basement where we keep expensive equipment. It’s been entrusted to me. When you get the stuff put away, return the key to apartment 310. That’s me. Knock loud.”
“I’m very responsible,” I assure him.
Bud starts to hand me the key, but when I extend my hand, his fingers close around it.
“Really, Bud,” I say. “I’ll take good care of it.”
But Bud’s ignoring me. He looks over my head and hands the key to Sloan standing silently behind me.
“I’ll just give it to your boyfriend here,” Bud says. “That way, I know I’ll get it back.”
I should be mad at Bud, but he is, after all, from a generation that believes women to be ditzy little creatures incapable of handling keys and money. Sloan is another matter.
“Listen, Bud. This man is not my boyfriend. He follows me around for no reason. I think he has one of those tracking thingies on my car.”
Bud winks at Sloan and says, “Way to go, man,” before tooling over to the cookie table.
“Well, damn,” I mutter, pushing the cart toward the elevator. Sloan trails behind.
“Nice outfit,” he says. “Looks good from back here.”
“Keep the sexist comments to yourself.”
“It’s always about sex with you, Al. Be nice to me. I’m your ride. The Pips have left the building.”
He moves me aside and takes charge of the cart. “Man’s work.”
I look around for Grandma and Dodie. They have, indeed, vanished. Inside the elevator, I jab the B button and wait for the elevator, whose ominous grinding sound fills me with alarm. Sloan and I, the cart between us, make our silent journey to the basement. After an interminable pause, the doors grind open revealing a small foyer and double doors that Sloan, wielding Bud’s precious key, quickly unlocks.
We enter a large, dimly lit room lined with rows of storage lockers. A Ping-Pong table and exercise bike sit at one end of the room, a sheet-draped gurney at the other. While Sloan stows the cart, I bounce a ping pong ball off the face of a paddle. I’m up to fifteen bounces when he steps up behind me. “Feel like a game?”
I turn to find we’re standing toe to toe. Way too close. “Bud’s waiting for his key.”
“Bud’s asleep in his recliner.” Sloan takes the paddle and ball from me and sets them on the table, slides his hands around my waist, and pulls me against him. Soft lips brush my cheek. His tongue traces the outline of my lips before gliding into my mouth. He tastes and smells of sugar cookies and salted nuts. Yum! I respond like a starving woman dropped into a sea of chocolate and return his kiss with enthusiastic moans. His hand traces the length of my spine and dives under my mini skirt, where it creates sensations that leave me trembling and gasping for air.
I break the lip-lock and mutter, “This can’t be happening.”
“Al.” He nuzzles the side of my neck. I shiver with anticipation. “You think too much.”
He needn’t have worried. My mind has, once again, gone missing. Sloan lifts me up and parks me on the ping pong table. I snake my legs around his waist and pull him in. I feel his smile against the sensitive skin beneath my ear. It feels so damn good I smile, too.
Suddenly, surprisingly, I’m airborne as Sloan whisks me into his arms and carries me to the other end of the room.
“Don’t want our first time to be on a ping pong table.”
He plops me down on the gurney. His words bring me down fast. First time? Do I really want to do this? And with a man I know only by his last name?
Yeah, I do.
He flips up my skirt and removes my panties in a smooth move that suggests many years of practice. Back in mindless mode, I’m busy unzipping his pants, gratified to hear the hitch in his breathing.
“Pill?” he murmurs, his breath hot against my cheek.
Desperate to feel his bare skin against mine, I hear the sound of his voice but don’t comprehend the question. He grabs my hands.
“Allegra, focus,” he wheezes. “Are you on the pill?”
“Damn!” I stop nibbling his lower lip and push him away. “I stopped after Michael.”
“No problem.”
He fishes around in a pocket, withdrawing a foil-wrapped packet. Part of me is pissed off that he arrived at Mystic Meadows thusly armed. The other part screams, Idiot! If Sloan’s little swimmers are as determined as he is, you’d better hope the dam isn’t breached.
Then, all that remains is the tactile presence of Sloan’s warm body against mine, my sense of wonder as I revel in intense waves of pleasure, which were always tantalizingly out of reach with Harley the Horrible. Sloan knows exactly what to do and how to move, angling his body until the delicious friction has me panting and moaning. I’m jarred back to earth when the top of my head slams into something hard.
“Eeeeoww!” I scream, pleasure and pain mingling in a single, violent explosion. Oh, God! Will I now need to be struck in the head in order to achieve sexual satisfaction? I curse my memory of Abnormal Psych 401.
Sloan turns us sideways and gives me an affectionate noogie while our breathing returns to normal. I feel a rumble of laughter start deep in his chest. “Did you feel the earth move, Al? Look around.”
Dazed, I push up on my elbow and try to get my bearings.
Like a faithful steed, the gurney has galloped across the room, coming to rest against the ping pong table. After a spate of giggling I gaze down at Sloan, who’s observing me with an air of bemusement. Since denial is my best friend, I say, “Please tell me I didn’t just have the best sex of my life in the basement of Mystic Meadows Retirement Home.”
“The best, huh?”
“Well, maybe not the best,” I hedge. No sense pumping up his already inflated ego. “It was over pretty fast.”
“Easy to fix. Later.” He touches my cheek with a tenderness I find surprising and pulls me back into his arms.
“We should go.” Even as I speak the words, I snuggle into his chest.
“No hurry,” he says. One big hand massages the back of my neck, the other works on my spine. I relax against him, lulled by waves of contentment, the rhythmic beat of h
is heart and gentle stroking hands. My eyes fall shut, and I drift away.
I awake to a buzzing sound, and reality bites me in the butt. Big mistake, Allegra! The voice in my head sounds like my mother’s. Such a romantic. You just had sex on a gurney. With a man you barely know. Who’s snoring like a power tool on speed.
I glance at my watch. It’s 8:45, and we have yet to return Bud’s precious key. When I try to untangle our legs, Sloan wakes with a startled cry and throws out his arms, causing me to fly off the gurney and onto the floor. Karma.
“Oh, shit!” Sloan scrambles off the gurney and picks me up. “Sorry, Al. Guess I was dreaming. You okay?”
“Just dandy,” I mutter, rubbing one knee. Sloan helps me gather up my scattered garments. The postcoital glow dissipates rapidly when I push the gurney back to its starting gate and try to take the sheet stamped “Property of Mystic Meadows” home for laundering.
“Are you nuts?” he says, dragging me to the elevator.
Back upstairs, Bud takes in my disheveled appearance and flashes his snowy white dentures at Sloan in a knowing grin.
After a quiet trip home—hard to find words that pertain to our situation—I shoot from the car. Sloan looks disappointed. Whether the seconds he wants involve me or Grandma’s pie is impossible to discern. Before I take three steps, the window glides down and Sloan says, “Hey Al.”
I turn to face him. He says, “You’re something else.”
I smile and start for the house.
“Hey, Al,” he says again.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t like to share.”
I’m too tired to get mad. “No problem,” I say. “I’ll stop sleeping with those other five guys.”
He grins and gives me a mock salute.
As I trudge up the stairs on shaky legs, I recall Jimmy’s parting comment. “You’re a case, Ms. Thome.”
Right you are, Jimmy. That’s me. A real case.
Chapter 17
Thursday
Nick is waiting outside my classroom door the next morning. I’m running late after hitting the snooze button once too often. Determined to put Sloan out of my mind, I attribute my deep sleep to the rigors of karaoke on a weeknight.
Rock and Roll Queen of Bedlam Page 12
