Bittersweet Dreams (17 page)

“Addressing?”

“Getting you medical help?”

“Oh. No. My mother just tells me to finish my dinner, but she doesn't say anything when I don't. She always gives me too much.”

I shook my head.
Too much to you
, I thought,
but probably just enough to anyone else
. “Okay. I'll do some research for you and get you information to give your mother. She has her head in the sand. You should be seeing a therapist, at least.”

She laughed. “My mother would be terribly embarrassed if I did that.”

“She's not embarrassed about you now?”

She lost her smile.

Suddenly, I thought of something. I looked around the cafeteria and saw the way some of the girls and boys were whispering and looking at us. How well known was it, I wondered, that Joy was gay? Had she had some sort of experience with someone else from school?

Possibly what I was doing now by sitting and talking with Joy was confirming the rumors the bitches from
Macbeth
had spread.

“I have to go,” I told her, ironically not even coming close to finishing my own food. “I have something to do before my next class.” I rose.

“Can I call you?” Joy asked.

“What for?”

“To talk,” she said.

“I don't have time to talk on the phone,” I told her, and took my tray to the trash bin and the shelf for trays. I didn't look back when I left.

What am I doing?
I thought when I was halfway down the hall. I stopped.
It's like I'm running away. I'm letting them push me around.
Why was I fleeing from Joy? I was so angry at myself.
Damn them.
Maybe I would find some way to get back at them after all.

I was in deep thought about it for the remainder of the afternoon. Every chance they got, one of them would say something nasty close enough for me to hear. I didn't react to any of it, but I was fuming inside. By the time the last period ended, I felt like strangling someone. I had told Julie that I was doing something after school. I needed more time before confronting her, especially in front of my father. It was then I remembered Mr. Taylor's invitation and went to his room.

“Please, close the door,” he said when I stepped into his classroom. He smiled and loosened his tie. “I need a break from the racket. Sometimes I wish I were teaching in a school for mutes.”

He wasn't wrong about the racket. The students were leaving the building. Most of them always acted as if it were a fire drill, especially the junior high. They charged at the doors like prisoners released, their screams and shouts bouncing off the hall walls.

I closed the door.

“Glad you decided to stop by,” he said. “I was hoping you would.”

He got up and took one of the seats at a student desk. Then he patted the desk beside him, and I took that seat. Now that I was here, I felt very foolish and nervous. Why had I come? He was a junior-high English teacher. What did I expect to gain? Was I flirting? Was I so thick when it came to any of this that I wouldn't recognize what I was doing? Could he see it?

It was like I had swallowed a ping-pong ball whole and it was bouncing in my stomach. Oddly, I hadn't felt nearly as nervous in Dr. Richards's office, and he was someone who was trained to strip me mentally. Somehow, though, when Mr. Taylor looked at me, I felt naked.

“So, I hear through the grapevine that you're having a particularly bad day,” he began.

“I'd say the school's having a worse day than I am.”

“Well, whether you like it or not, you're part of the school. Tell me what happened, what really happened. By the time anything gets to this wing of the building, it's quite distorted, I'm sure. What actually caused all this commotion?”

Commotion
,
situation
, whatever word was used, didn't do it justice. I looked down at the floor. His asking me about it stirred my rage the way a wild beast that had finally quieted down might burst into an angry roar when poked. My body tightened with the frustration I felt. He misread my silence.

“I'm not looking for juicy gossip,” he said. “I know some of my colleagues feed on that, but I have a feeling you weren't treated fairly, and this whole thing, what's happening to you, is more important than gossip.”

“Treated fairly? You've been here long enough to know that fairness is not the first consideration, not in a school where donors put in enough money to get their names on gyms and pools. Justice comes in only one color here, green.”

He laughed. “Okay. What happened?” he asked, softening his tone. “How did this start?”

“How did it start? What happened was that I didn't turn into melting butter when the school's Don Juan, Carlton James, lowered himself to approach me in the cafeteria and suggest that we get together at his house after school. I believe his idea of a get-together is literally that. He thinks it's all about plugs and sockets.”

He widened his smile. “That's very good. Plugs and sockets. I would have loved to be a fly on that cafeteria wall when he came on to you. I know who he is, of course. Girls trail behind him, waiting for him to drop a smile in their direction. They scoop it up like beggars hoping for a handout of love.”

“You have time to notice that sort of thing?”

“I'm just being observant. We're all supposed to be observant. It comes with the job description. From what you're saying, I gather he struck out completely and left with his head in his hands.”

“It was more like a balloon losing all its air. And I think he had more than his head in his hands.”

“I'll bet,” he said with that wide grin again. “He met more than his match when he tangled with you. And then what happened? I mean, how did it lead to all this?”

“Simple. Not being one who gracefully takes rejection, Carlton fanned the flames of hot gossip that were obediently and loyally spread by the three bitches from
Macbeth
, gossip that would make him look better, too.”

“Three bitches? Not the three witches?”

“The witches at least had a purpose in Shakespeare's play, prophecy. These three just stir the pot of frogs and newts.”

He shook his head. “I love it. So who are they?”

“Joyce Brooker, Cora Addison, and Denise Hartman.”

“Oh, yeah. Now that you mention it, I have heard them mumbling, ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair,' in the hallway. So they were the ones who mixed the witches' brew, went home, and told their parents you were making unhealthy sexual advances on them?”

“On them, I can't imagine any sexual advances possibly being healthy,” I said.

He laughed again. “What fools to take you on. So?”

“We had some words in the locker room. They were trying to find out . . .”

“What?”

“If I was seeing someone from outside the school.”

“Are you?” He raised his hands when I looked hard at him. Was this something he should be asking? “Just trying to understand the whole picture. Whether you are or not isn't my business. I will say I had that suspicion myself. Not that I'd blame you,” he quickly added. “You're so far ahead of the boys here they probably look like tykes to you.”

“Am I?”

He tilted his head. “I could tell that just from talking with you for a few minutes, Mayfair.”

“I'm not seeing anyone from outside the school, anyone older,” I said. “Nevertheless, they started to accuse me of being interested in
them
, assuming that if a girl turned down the school's heartthrob, she had to be gay. They accused me of paying too much attention to their naked bodies.”

He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “I see. That's it? That was enough to cause all this commotion?”

“Mothers rushing to the defense of daughters in danger can be very persuasive, especially if their combined net worth is more than that of most third world countries.”

“And what ruling has come down from the high command?”

“I'm excused from PE for the year and banned from the girls' locker room, where the alleged incidents took place. This is called a politically acceptable compromise because it's assumed I didn't want to go to PE.”

He shook his head. “Makes you look like the bad one here.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Your parents approved of that?”

“Only my father's new wife appeared at the hanging.”

“And put up no argument when they made that so-called compromise?”

“She probably cowrote it.”

“Oh, I see. I'm sorry.”

“That's all right. I didn't anticipate much more. Nothing to be sorry about, Mr. Taylor. I'm actually not brokenhearted about missing PE classes, and avoiding the locker room might prevent athlete's foot.”

He laughed again. “Call me Alan,” he said. “When we're alone in the building, I mean.” Then he turned very serious. “I know that it's painful for you to see these other girls get it over on you, but joking about it doesn't help really, does it?”

“I suppose I can say it keeps me from crying, so it's the better choice.”

“This sucks,” he said, surprising me with his burst of anger. “It's why I keep thinking about looking for a job in a public school. There, everyone's equally abused. If there's anyone who deserves the full respect and support of this school's administration, it's you, Mayfair. I know for a fact that they brag about you whenever they can.”

“Yeah, well, they will probably stop doing that. Politically risky.”

He moved his hand close to mine, and before I could pull it back, he put his over mine. “You're putting on a good show, Mayfair, but I'm sure you feel as if you're all alone here, left to drift any which way, especially now. I've heard the talk about you in the faculty room. No one feels up to the challenges you present. You have to be pretty frustrated with how you're treated in and out of the classroom.”

“If I gave it any real thought, I guess I would be.”

“I'm sure you think about it. I don't have your IQ,” he continued, “but I was pretty much at the head of my class in high school, and that cost me some popularity. It's stupid, but I intimidated some of the other students. I can't even begin to imagine how stupid you make your classmates feel.”

“I don't have to do that. They do it for themselves,” I said. “Stupidity is on sale here every day.”

“You do have a great sense of humor, Mayfair.”

“Sense of irony. There's a difference.”

“Right, right.”

He still had his hand over mine. Suddenly, he looked down at our hands and began to gently play with my fingers. I wanted to pull my hand away from his, but I didn't want to embarrass him or make him feel bad. I was enjoying his sympathy for me, maybe too much.

“There's no reason two people, two adult people, and that's what I consider you, an adult, can't treat each other like adults even in a place like this. I'm not your actual teacher here. For all practical purposes, I'm just like someone else you might meet on the outside. I wish you would seriously consider me your adult friend. That's what I would like to consider you.”

Slowly, I pulled my hand back. “Thank you,” I said.

“I mean it. I'm serious when I say that sometimes I feel as if I'm on an island here. Knowing that I have you to talk to occasionally will be something to look forward to.”

“I'm not the best at making small talk, Mr.—”

“Alan.”

“Alan.”

“We won't make small talk. I promise. So,” he said, glancing up at the wall clock, “I guess you missed your ride home. Your stepmother usually picks up you and your stepsister, Allison, right?”

Was there anything about me he didn't know? I guessed he was looking at me every chance he got.

“Bus duty,” he said, seeing the puzzled look on my face. “I have to watch the critters board safely.”

“Oh. Right. No, I didn't miss it. I told my father's new wife not to wait for me today.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘new wife'?”

“I'll never think of her as anything else.”

“I see. No love lost, as they say.”

“No love lost.”

“Did you tell her not to wait after I asked you earlier to stop by? I mean, I'm flattered you remained after school, but . . .”

I saw where he was going. He thought I really wanted to see him, that perhaps I was hoping or expecting that he would take me home. “No. I had already made different plans,” I said. I stood up. “Thanks for the talk, Mr. Taylor.”

“Alan, please, when we're alone,” he said. “Hearing you call me Mr. Taylor makes me feel older than I am.”

“Okay. Thanks, Alan.”

“I could give you a ride if you need one,” he said, standing. “It's not a problem. I just have a few more things to do here, and . . .”