I loved our high school auditorium. It wasn’t youthful anymore, showing its age through the stains on the acoustical panel walls, and the broken chairs here and there with orange plastic taped across the seats, and the linoleum floor with missing tiles the kids loved to jump across. For the next three months we’d be using every nook and cranny of the auditorium—the seats for storage, the aisles for work sessions, the wings and stage for rehearsals, and the backstage for, well, staging—as we put all the different parts of Rent together.
There’d been talk of a bond package to present to the voters next year in order to upgrade the place. Secretly I’d been glad when the economic downturn the nation seemed to be entering scotched the idea. I liked the comfort of things the way they were; the lumbering, kid-friendly auditorium was a known quantity that worked fine for study hall and band concerts and play presentations, and of course play preparation. Known quantities were good for a man who needed the safety of the rut and the preconceived notion.
Almost three hours later, the sound of “Seasons of Love,” the opening song for Rent, came from the stage behind me as I strode up the center aisle. Because George was choir director as well as the theater teacher, he was acting as musical director and stage director for the play, and that represented an enormous burden even for his energetic talents. Most of the play was sung, not spoken. It was, after all, loosely based on and certainly inspired by the opera La Bohème.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, the actors sang. They sounded good already.
Danielle Robertson looked up at me as I approached her own personal domain in the very back section of the auditorium. She had huge rolls of paper spread across the floor behind the last row of seats, and already I could see the outlines of New York City as it would appear on the stage in early December. Tiffany Davis, our art teacher, had already sketched a lot, and it seemed Danielle was adding to that.
“Doing okay?” I asked, focusing only on her and doing my best to act completely natural. I’d made up my mind and had come to see her for a reason. And then, craning my neck to admire the art at my feet, I added, “You’ve done a lot of work already.”
She pushed a strand of honey hair behind her ear. Danielle was squat like a fireplug, matter-of-fact, and had more talent in her little finger than I had in my whole body. No wonder her kids got leading roles.
“We need to work fast,” she said. “Kevin’s helped. If we could get more hours out of him, that would be good.”
“Sorry that I have to work for a living,” Kevin said. He straightened from where he’d been coloring in what looked like a tree in a park scene, and I squelched any reaction to the sight of him, the fine sight of him. Reactions were for other places and other times, definitely not for school.
Kevin had arrived forty-five minutes earlier, around five o’clock, which meant he must have left the bank in Kenneton no later than four-thirty. He’d shown up wearing the same suit that had rested so well on his slender body at Brennan’s. Now he stood with his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his collar unbuttoned, and his weight distributed evenly on both feet, as if he were ready to spring into action for any emergency.
Danielle was saying, with one hand out to him, “No, of course I didn’t mean you should quit your job. I’m grateful for whatever time you can give us.”
Kevin bent again to place the paintbrush he was holding on a metal splash plate. “I don’t know how often I can be here, but I like to help. Plus it gives me a chance to show Channing I care about what she does.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Danielle said, “I forgot which one was yours. She’s a lovely girl, if a little on the wild side.”
“Meaning you wouldn’t want your son Johnny dating her,” Kevin said with a wry twist of his lips.
“I’m sure if he wanted to we’d have no objection. But he’s really busy with his church youth group. Besides, I thought Channing already had a boyfriend.” She snapped her fingers as she tried to remember. “Uh….” Snap. “Uh….” Snap.
“JJ,” I supplied. “JJ Russell. First period history, he comes in hungover on Mondays.”
“He does?” Kevin asked, and his frown was deep.
“It’s better than not showing up at all,” I said philosophically. “And he’s a good kid at heart. Listen, George doesn’t want us working past six. So roll up for the evening, okay? And thanks for coming, we really appreciate the help.”
Danielle would be getting a credit in the program as the show’s assistant art director, even if it was unpaid, and she’d be showing up almost every day to help the art teacher. It still didn’t hurt to express our gratitude. I planned to do it as often as I could. Parents like Danielle and her husband John were the backbone of the schools. They were solid, good-hearted people.
“So,” Kevin said, “are you done for the day too?”
Kevin and I hadn’t exchanged a private word since he’d arrived. “No,” I said, “George and I are having a strategy dinner at Little Bit’s down on Fifteenth. Would the two of you like to join us? Sometimes it helps to have a third and fourth point of view.”
As I had counted on her doing, Danielle shook her head. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got a family to feed, assuming the slow cooker hasn’t failed. Kevin, why don’t you go? You’ve seen what I’ve started here. You can represent the art department.”
He tilted his head, measuring me. “Sure that’d be okay with George?” With you?
“I’m sure.”
He nodded decisively. “Okay, then, I will. I’m driving Channing home, so I’ll meet you two there.”
Little Bit’s restaurant was a neighborhood/school/town meeting place out on highway 382, about ten minutes from the high school. We didn’t have any chain restaurants in Gunning besides the Dairy Queen on the east side and the Kentucky Fried Chicken on the north side. The owner of Little Bit’s had put four kids through the school system and never failed to have some sort of supportive message on the board outside. When I drove up, close to seven o’clock, it said, “Go Mustangs! Beat the Panthers!” Football would continue to be king until the last drop of oil was extracted from the folds of land under the prairie and probably after that. George never scheduled rehearsal on Friday afternoon; if he had, all the cast members would have skipped to attend the pep rally for the football team.
When I stepped into the rustically paneled, low-ceilinged dining room, Ellie, the manager, was there to meet me, the soul of efficient, down-home charm in a grandmotherly package. She’d make sure her customers enjoyed themselves at her place even if they didn’t want to. She didn’t know me by name, but she did by sight, and she greeted me warmly. “Meetin’ somebody?” Her voice always sounded hoarse, a little like Kevin’s did, as if she’d spent all day shouting at the waitresses.
A small voice that I hadn’t heard in years sounded in my head: Wouldn’t you like to know? My mouth opened and then closed as I was stunned into momentary silence. Where had that rebellious thought come from? No, she absolutely would not want to know. Nobody in town wanted to acknowledge behavior outside the norm that would challenge their understanding of reality. Everybody was like everybody else here.
“I’ll need a table for three, please,” I said pleasantly, once I’d made a show of covering up by scanning what I could see of the diners already there. George had said he’d be a little late because the principal had wanted to talk with him, probably about the budget for the play. And Kevin wasn’t in sight. “Better yet, is the booth in the back available?”
She led me to the last booth along the side of the main dining room, which on a Tuesday evening was less than half full. I picked the side of the booth where I could see the front door and be seen by those coming in, ordered a sweetened iced tea she said the waitress would bring, and then I pulled the game set over in front of me. The set was why I’d suggested to George that we meet at Little Bit’s instead of at the Red Top Barbecue or at Fran’s Home Cooking. Years ago, plastic Eight-Games-I
n-One sets had appeared at every red-and-white swathed table in the restaurant. Chess, checkers, Parcheesi, backgammon, and more were available for every harried mother to shove at her kids to keep them quiet.
There was seldom a complete set of pieces at any one table. At the back booth, the white king and the black queen were missing, along with a pawn from each side, and so I went in search of them, going table-hopping until I got what I needed.
I returned to my own booth as the tea was being delivered. The twenty-something waitress I didn’t know plunked it down and held out a menu. “Want me to bring drinks for your friend?”
“No, I don’t know what they’d like. Two others will be joining me.”
“Okay.” She put two more menus on the table and wandered off. Then she came back to ask me if I wanted any onion rings for an appetizer.
The sound of the door opening made me look up from positioning the white pawns on their squares. Kevin walked in, holding his suit jacket slung over his shoulder with one extended finger. He checked through the tables and saw me, lifted his other hand in half a wave, and started toward me.
I made a conscious decision to look away, to not allow myself to feel anything at the sight of a good-looking man, as I’d done so many times over the years that it’d become automatic. But this good-looking man was coming to join me. I knew him. The whole point of maneuvering things so he could join us for dinner was to acknowledge him for what he was: a past and potential sex partner, someone I could spend time with as my real self. A man I had decided I could allow myself to be interested in.
I looked up and tried to release the manacles I’d placed on my body, but it wasn’t easy. Kevin was a sinful temptation coming closer, a promise of pleasure, of arching up in the body’s mindless explosion, and he was a man whose eyes were focused exclusively on me. He stopped at the table with his hip cocked to one side and smiled artlessly down at me.
Devil, I thought, though I didn’t think he knew the picture he painted. “Sit down, for God’s sake.”
He gave me a quizzical look and then tucked himself into the seat opposite me while giving the restaurant a good going-over. “I feel right at home,” he said with a smirk. “There’s a place like this in Marathon.” He nodded toward the sign that said Sometimes I wake up grumpy, and sometimes I let him sleep. Little Bit’s walls were covered with sayings like that, and they were changed out every few months too. That kept the customers guessing and happy.
“Doesn’t every Texas restaurant have a possum sheriff?” I asked. A stuffed possum with a tiny six-shooter in one paw and a one-quarter gallon hat on its head hovered over our table.
“If it doesn’t,” Kevin said totally seriously, “it’s got a jackalope.”
“There’s one of those here too, behind you.”
Kevin twisted around to chuckle at the sight of the jackrabbit with the antlers of an antelope. “That’s great.” He turned back to me. “Louisiana has its idiosyncrasies, and I enjoyed the music, but there’s no place like home.”
“No place like Texas,” I agreed. “Good people here. Good senses of humor.”
“Yep. So.” He nodded at the board set up between us. “Do you play?”
I picked up a white and a black pawn and held them out in front of me, one hidden in each fist. He tapped my left hand, and I opened to show white.
He picked it from my palm. “Offense.”
I placed the black piece where it belonged and turned the board so black was on my side. “Defense.”
Golf might have been his game, but I knew a little something about chess. Years before, my mother had given me one of those Radio Shack computerized chess sets so I could play against the machine, and during more than one evening I’d wanted to throw the thing against the wall for presenting yet another way to pin me in a corner.
Except for Kevin saying, “I’m going to assume your sense of humor—which I presume you’ve got—doesn’t involve hiding a Chess Grand Master’s certification,” we played in silence for the first few moves, each of us concentrating. I watched while Kevin hovered over a piece for only a few seconds and then decisively pushed it forward with two fingers. I took a while thinking before advancing even my pawns, but he didn’t wait even thirty seconds before moving. White gave a decided advantage to anyone who knew what they were doing, but after five minutes, it didn’t seem that Kevin was especially skilled. He played with bravura, but with a simple, direct strategy that was more suited to the boxing ring than the grand game of kings.
“So what’s good to eat here?” he asked as I was reaching for my bishop.
“Try the catfish platter,” I said. “It comes with green tomato relish.”
“Okay.” He wasted no time bringing his knight out into play. “Channing tells me she has you for class.”
“That’s right.”
“How’s she doing?”
“All right. She’s a solid B student. She probably would do better if she didn’t goof off.”
“She told me you were a good teacher.”
“I try.”
“I bet you really are. Dedicated. So how did you get into education?”
“I don’t know. Seemed like a good idea at the time.” I raised my eyes from examining the board to look at him. “How did you get into banking?”
His eyes actually sparkled. How did he do that? I couldn’t imagine looking as alive as he did right then, just sitting in a restaurant playing chess with me. “I’m not sure,” he said. “How does anybody find a profession? It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Humph,” I said, because I didn’t want to react to what he said, though I suspect my lips twitched.
We exchanged a few more moves. I was already closing in for the kill, since I was better at the boardplay by about the same degree that he was better than I was at golf. I moved my rook up, preparing to maneuver him into an indefensible position, and he knew right away he was in trouble. He said something low and probably slanderous.
“What was that?” I asked, leaning forward to rub it in. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
He didn’t say anything, instead pointed to something behind me. I turned and there was one of Little Bit’s signs that said Yes, I admit it. I got a thinkin’ problem. It was either that or the one that proclaimed No Sushi.
“You’re a goner,” I told him.
“Probably.”
He rubbed his neck as he concentrated. I asked, “Are you sore from our game?” I’d had to resort to my prescription painkiller.
“Yeah, I had to take two Advil before I got to sleep. I’m not in the good shape I used to be, that’s for sure.”
“You look like you might work out.”
That brought his gaze flashing up to me. “Mainly I jog. Nothing like before.”
“Before?”
“I was on the university football team. Years ago. Another life. How about you, any aftereffects from the golf? Your….” He nodded to where my arm rested against my side, like it usually did. “Your… everything okay?”
“Sure,” I said roughly, and I looked away across the room. What was, was, and nothing I could ever do would change it. I was lucky to have the use of my arm as much as I did. In most settings I could conceal the limited range of motion, and I didn’t wear short sleeves outside even in the summer, so the scars weren’t visible. It was only because Kevin and I had grappled naked in hotel rooms in Houston that he’d seen them.
He was overtly surveying the board when I looked back at him. “I think you’ve got me trapped.”
“Checkmate in a few moves.”
“Do I give up now?” He suddenly smiled. “Or should I fight on?”
But we didn’t have the chance to play through because George was there, looming over the table. “Sorry to interrupt your game, gents, but here I am.”
“You aren’t interrupting, you’re preventing a massacre,” Kevin said.
“Then I came at the right time. Move over, Tom.” While I shuffled over toward t
he wall, he called out to the waitress for a Coke. Once he was settled, he extended his hand to shake Kevin’s over the table. “Hello, there. I heard you were helping Danielle. We sure do appreciate it.”
“My pleasure.”
“So, what did Hiram have to say?” I asked.
“It sure wasn’t about the budget. You’re not going to believe this, but Mrs. Patricia Porter wasn’t satisfied with what she had to say on Saturday. She came to officially complain to him about the play this afternoon.”
“You’re kidding,” Kevin said. “Is that serious? A problem?”
I took the long spoon and vigorously stirred my tea, trying to mask my unease. The ice cubes made a clinking sound. “There’s always one in every group,” I said. “You can’t be a teacher for long without running into the self-important parent.”
“Especially in theater,” George said, rolling his eyes. “Spare me from the theater mom. But Hiram said she threatened to take her complaint to the school board.”
“I guess she doesn’t have anything better to do with her time.”
“It won’t come to anything,” George said. “You know that.”
“I thought the board had already approved the play,” Kevin put in.
“No, that was the committee the superintendent set up,” I said.
Kevin shrugged. “Same thing. Anyway, she pulled her daughter out of the play. What right does she have to complain?”
George unrolled his silverware and put the paper napkin on his lap, tucking it into his belt. “She thinks it’s unsuitable for the community, a bad influence, presents the worst kind of morals, you know the drill.”
Dreamspinner Press Year Three Greatest Hits Page 82
