Between the Sheets

by Molly O'Keefe

  She took out two examples and taped them to the blackboard with masking tape.

  “What do you think these mean?” she asked.

  One was a picture she’d drawn in the manner of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. She stood in a field surrounded by beautiful swirls and explosions of color and texture. The other was a picture of her Art Barn, filled with kids who were part human, part foxes, all mischief.

  “Is that me?” Scott asked, pointing to one of the kids in her picture.

  She squinted at the picture. “You know, I do see a resemblance.”

  “Are you saying we’re all animals?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “She’s saying you’re all foxes,” Casey said.

  She smiled at Casey, who beamed at her attention before he remembered he had a sneer he was trying to make stick.

  I’m on to you, she thought, and felt that surge of affection she always felt when she saw past the too big veneer of the “problem kids.”

  “Why do you think I picked foxes?”

  “Why do you think you picked foxes?”

  Shelby blinked, not at his tone, but the way he’d rephrased the question. She wondered if Casey with the shaggy red hair and freckles, slouching in his chair as if at the advanced age of eleven he’d seen it all, had spent some time with a psychiatrist.

  “Because you’re all sly and mischievous and looking for trouble,” she answered. “But you’re still cute.”

  “What about the other one?” Jessica asked.

  The room was silent and Shelby turned to look at the picture again. The figure in the middle was clearly her, even though she’d drawn herself from the back. The blue tee shirt she wore said Art Barn across the shoulders, and any kid who took a class out at the barn got the exact same shirt.

  “Art is everywhere?” Jessica asked, giving it her best shot.

  “You need to get your eyes checked?” Scott said.

  She bent forward, to look him in the eye. “Do we need to have a conversation in the hallway?” she whispered, and he blanched, shaking his head.

  “Beauty is everywhere,” she said. Though she’d drawn that picture perhaps more in hope than as proof of anything.

  “So, you’ve got three pages there. Take your time and think of three images that convey something to me about who you are. Or what you feel. Or know. Or believe.”

  A dozen desktops were lifted and pencil boxes were pulled out. “Don’t just draw the very first thing that comes to mind. Think about how you’re going to surprise me. Or make me work to figure it out. For instance,” she turned and found Jeremy in the corner. Sweet Jeremy who grinned up at her, blinking through his thick glasses. “Jeremy, perhaps you could consider not drawing dinosaurs.”

  “But … I love dinosaurs.”

  “I know that. We’ve all known that. Since you were in kindergarten there has not been a child on the planet who has loved dinosaurs more than you. Try to think of something else.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “Then at least draw me a very good dinosaur.”

  He beamed at her. Just beamed, and all the black soot that lingered on her heart from her late night and frazzled morning was gone.

  Children and art were simply the best medicine. The very best.

  Heads were bent over work and the room was silent but for the scratch of pencil and crayon over paper. She walked up and down the aisles until she got to the far corner where Casey, who was bent so far over his desk she couldn’t see his paper, sketched furiously. His pencil was a short, bitten-off thing, probably salvaged from the broken pencil bin Mrs. Jordal had for kids who kept forgetting pencils.

  “Do you want some colored pencils?” she asked. “Or crayons? I have some.”

  “I’m fine,” he said without looking up, without taking a break. Without giving her a chance to see what he was working on.

  A couple more kids raised their hands to ask questions, and she had to finally move Scott to the far side of the room because he wouldn’t stop talking to his friend John. Casey didn’t look up. She set a sharp pencil down on the edge of his desk but he ignored it.

  “You have five minutes left,” she said at almost the exact moment Mrs. Jordal came back in. Shelby took her own pictures down and tucked them back in the bag. In the kindergarten class after this they were going to start a finding-shapes-in-nature exercise, which was basically just an excuse to get them outside and moving around.

  “Time’s up,” she said. “Hand in your pages. I’ll see you next Wednesday and we’ll keep working on this.”

  Students flooded up from their desks, a giant wave of kids who smelled like graphite and wax crayon. Casey didn’t meet her eyes and handed her his page facedown. “It’s nice to meet you, Casey,” she said, and he shook his hair out of his eyes in that weird, totally practiced and ineffective Justin Bieber way.

  “Yeah,” he said and shuffled back to his desk. He was tall, really tall. The tallest kid in the class by at least a few inches. She hadn’t noticed that when he was slouching at his desk.

  She gathered up the pages and grabbed her bag and empty cat coffee cup and went back to the office for another cup of coffee before heading to kindergarten.

  The new kid forgotten for the moment.

  Chapter 2

  Shelby stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom and contemplated the many circles of hell she called home. Her mother’s Alzheimer’s, that was a circle. What happened to her on national television the past summer, the details of her sad sex life broadcast to the world, that was a doozy of a circle. Her childhood—another one.

  But this! Listening to her jerk new neighbor rev motorcycle engines at midnight, for the third straight night in a row—this was a whole new world of torture.

  The engine cut off into silence and she held her breath, waiting for the next grinding, squealing roar to begin, but the silence stretched on. Nice … thick … deep silence.

  Her eyelids fluttered shut.

  Vroooaaaaam, vrooooaaaaam, vrraaaa vrraaaa vraaaaoooom.

  “Shelby!” Her bedroom door swung open and there was her mother in her long pink-and-white nightgown, her gray hair falling down around the marching-into-battle set of her shoulders. But her hands, like tiny nervous white birds, picked at the buttons at the front of her gown.

  “Who is doing that?” Evie asked. “Who is cutting down all the trees?”

  That’s it, jackass. You’re freaking out my mom.

  Shelby kicked off her sheets and grabbed her robe from where it hung over the rocking chair that no one ever rocked in. “He’s not cutting down trees, Mom.” She tied the sash of the robe nice and tight over her tee shirt and sweatpants. If she could find herself a breastplate and helmet she’d put that on, too. She shoved her feet into her thick winter slippers. “It’s our neighbor.”

  “Phil is cutting down the trees?”

  Oh, Mom.

  “Tell your father to go tell Phil to stop it.”

  “It’s not Phil. Phil died years ago. It’s our new neighbor.”

  “Well, tell your father to make him stop.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.” She curved an arm over her mother’s shoulders and tenderly led her into the hallway. “You go on back to bed.”

  But in the hours since Shelby had kissed her mother good night, Mom had been busy. Evie’s room was a mess; it was as if the clothes from her double closet had been belched onto the bed and across the floor. “What …” All of Mom’s shoes, the years-out-of-date heels and boots and summer sandals, were tucked, toe first, under the bed skirt. They formed a moat of shoes around her bed.

  “Mom,” she breathed. “What are you doing?”

  “I was going to sleep, but then I remembered that I need my coat with the trim?” Mom started back into the closet. “I could swear it was back here. Do you know where it is?”

  “I don’t know where your coat is. But you can’t even get into your bed.” She lifted her mother’s old church dresses and the ra
re business suit off the bed, but Evie grabbed the hangers from her hands.

  “Don’t. Shelby. Don’t touch it.”

  “You need to sleep.”

  “I’ll sleep after I finish this.”

  But she wouldn’t. The whole house was filled with projects Evie started and never finished. Messes created and never cleaned up. A thousand thoughts and plans unfinished. There were times, like right now, it took every single bit of power and energy and strength Shelby had not to scream. Not to tear her hair out and fall on the floor and yell what do I do? How can I help her?

  Vroooaaaa, Vrooooaaaaaaam.

  That was something she could do. Take apart her neighbor!

  She turned, her robe sailing out behind her as she raced down the stairs and out the front door. Not even the cold night air of January cooled her off. The silvery moonlight cast white light across the grass; it turned the shadows of the house and the garage into long dragons that she stomped across. Steam billowed out of her mouth. Her feet, in her old moccasin slippers, didn’t feel the cold or the gravel of the road that separated her from her neighbor.

  She was furious. And righteous. And she felt no pain.

  The new motorcycle-loving jackass had moved into the old O’Halloran farm. The door to his garage was open, throwing out a wide square of yellow light accompanied by the faint bass line of a rock song.

  On one side of the garage there was an older-model red pickup, and what looked like a repair shop filled the other half. She tilted her head, considering the man currently destroying her sleep. He was much older than she’d thought. For some reason she’d expected a kid. Because kids were often insensitive and didn’t think about their neighbors. Full-grown adults knew better.

  Or should.

  He had blond hair pulled back into a short, stubby ponytail at his neck. As he stood up from his crouch beside the offending motorcycle (which was surprisingly small considering the amount of noise it made), she slowed to a stop beside a big crack that bisected the driveway.

  Not a boy. At all.

  He was a man. Tall. Wide. Really … very wide. He wore a black short-sleeved tee shirt over a white waffle Henley. The tight sleeves of his shirt revealed arms thick with muscles that bunched and shifted as he put his hands on his waist, staring down at that bike as though it had disappointed him for the very last time. Dark leather cuffs circled both wrists.

  A man in jewelry of any kind was exotic in Bishop, Arkansas. But those bands … there was something overtly—flagrantly—erotic about them.

  Ridiculous, she thought, tearing her eyes from his bracelets.

  His black tee shirt had some faded, worn lettering on the back that she couldn’t read, but she could imagine it once said badass. Or warrior, or some other self-fetishizing nonsense.

  The bike.

  The body.

  The ponytail.

  What a cliché.

  He leaned over the tall red toolbox and set down the wrench in his hand only to select a new one. Then he crouched again, his worn jeans pulling taut across his legs and …

  “Excuse me,” she spoke up, making sure the belt to her robe was good and tight.

  He spun toward her, the wrench lifted like a weapon. Gasping, she took a step back, even though she was a good fifteen feet away from the threat of that wrench. Immediately he dropped his arm and smiled, sheepishly. It was a disarming smile on a man so big. Gave his fearsome size a softness.

  “Sorry.” His voice was low and deep. Gravelly, like he’d just woken up or hadn’t been speaking for a while. It was an intimate voice. Private. “You scared me.”

  He was over six feet tall, packed with muscles and power, wearing a tee shirt that probably said I’ve done five years for assault.

  Scaring him seemed ludicrous.

  “Yes, well, you’ve been scaring us for the last three nights.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I live across the street.” He glanced over her shoulder at her big white farmhouse as if it had just magically appeared for the first time.

  “Hey, we’re neighbors. Nice to meet you,” he said. He put the wrench in his pocket and stepped out of the garage, across the driveway toward her with his hand out. “My name is Ty. Short for Wyatt. Wyatt Svenson. People just always call me Ty.”

  “I’m … Shelby. Shelby Monroe.” She shook his hand, looking into his face for any reaction from him. Any recognition of her name or what had happened to her on national television six months ago. But his expression was blank, genial. As if it were noon instead of midnight, and neighborly small talk at this hour made sense.

  “Can I get you something?” He jerked his thumb back at the garage. “A beer? Never had a house with a garage before, much less a garage with a beer fridge, and I had no idea what I was missing.”

  “It’s midnight, Wyatt,” she said. She wouldn’t use his nickname. Ty. And even his full name felt too familiar, but this man with the grease stains on his hands was hardly a Mr. Svenson. “I don’t want a beer.”

  “It’s midnight?” A furrow appeared between his wide blue eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding. I thought it was ten.”

  “Maybe you should put a clock over your beer fridge.”

  “I suppose you can hear the bike, huh?” He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and smiled at her, looking at her through his eyelashes. Like every high school sophomore who didn’t do his art assignment and came looking for a pass.

  “Yes. I can hear the bike. I have heard the bike. Last night until three in the morning. And it’s a weeknight. Some of us have to work.”

  “I’m sorry.” His wide mouth kicked up in a crooked, boyish grin. At some point someone must have told him he was charming, because he was waving that grin around like it was a get-out-of-jail-free card. “I am. I lost track of time. I found this old Velocette and the carburetor—”

  “I don’t particularly care. Please.” She gave him a raking look. From his blond hair to the frayed cuffs of his jeans, just so he knew she wasn’t scared of him or charmed or impressed by his muscles and frankly … she just wanted to be awful. It went against everything she was taught, all the things she believed, but at the moment, she was flat out of grace. The pressure valve on her life hadn’t been loosened in a very long time. And being awful to this guy … for very little reason, it let off some of that steam. She wasn’t proud of it, but for the moment it felt good. Like eating cheap chocolate.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and backed out of the light into the shadows toward her house. “Just keep it down.”

  Blank-faced, he nodded, and she turned, walking home.

  She was nearly at the road, acutely aware that her baby toe had gone numb in her slipper, when he spoke again.

  “Pleasure meeting you, neighbor.” He wasn’t so charming now, and the next word was not a surprise. She’d heard it more times than she could count, from older students she wouldn’t let charm her into a better grade. From strangers who didn’t see past her prickly and cold surface.

  From her father, once he gave up the ruse of loving her.

  She’d heard it so much, with far more venom than this man could muster, that it didn’t come close to piercing that cold and prickly surface.

  “Bitch.”

  It wasn’t until lunch on Thursday that Shelby had a chance to look at the identity projects the fifth-grade class had made. Sitting in the Bishop Elementary teachers’ lounge with another cup of coffee and a terribly unsatisfying salad that she’d given up on, she pulled the packets from her bag.

  Jeremy had drawn a very, very good stegosaurus. His detail, particularly with the colored pencils, was really improving. Jessica had drawn a picture of herself praying and what she hoped was Jesus standing over her shoulder.

  “Oh, hey, it’s Art day.”

  Oh God, it’s Joe.

  Sixth-grade teacher Joe Phillips stepped into the small lounge and it got even smaller. It seemed to shrink to the head of a pin, and she didn’t know what to do with
her arms and legs. It felt like she had extra, as if she’d turned into an octopus upon his arrival. She sat up, crossed her legs, and then uncrossed them and when he wasn’t looking, made sure all her hair was back in its ponytail and she didn’t have any food on the front of her sweater.

  She was worse than a teenage girl. And utterly powerless to help herself.

  Other women knew how to do this. How to like a man, how to know if he liked her. And then, in some kind of magical alchemy, take all that interest and turn it into something. A date. A passionate make-out session in a broom closet. Anything.

  But somehow, she had missed those lessons. When other girls were pulled aside and taught how to put on mascara, or figured out how to flirt, or how to be confident around a man she wanted to like her, she’d been busy praying.

  Busy begging forgiveness for sins she didn’t even know how to commit.

  There’d been a man at her Teachers of Arts and Sciences Conference last summer—an Ag teacher from the other side of the state whom she thought she’d been flirting with at the conference for two years. For two years she’d been drinking white wine spritzers in the hotel bar with other teachers, waiting, hoping for him to make a move. Any kind of move.

  But he never did.

  So last summer she’d worked up the courage to take matters into her own hands and when the moment arose, she planned to ask him up to her room—she’d even brought a thong! A thong.

  He brought pictures of his new wife. Their wedding in the Ozarks.

  Oh, how foolish she’d felt in that thong. How stupid. And how furious.

  As a child, in the face of her father’s violent disapproval, she’d created this identity, this cold distance between herself and other people’s opinions, in an act of defiant self-protection. Dad couldn’t hurt her if she pretended not to care. Pretended she didn’t need affection or approval.

  And then no one could hurt her if she pretended she was above the messy needs and wants of the human heart if she just buried what she wanted so deep they couldn’t see it—so deep that she even forgot it.

  It had been an abused and scared kid’s way of coping.