Devil Moon (5 page)

* * *

Maddie pulled open the blinds in her office and pushed up a window for fresh air as Randy took a seat in one of the chairs before her desk. She'd personally painted the walls a high-gloss eggshell. Landscapes chosen for their psychologically calming effect graced the walls.

She kicked off her shoes, chuckling at him. "I thought your 'war injury' came from putting out oil well fires in Desert Storm."

"Oh, that's right, I forgot." He swung one leg over the arm of the chair. "Well, you know how improvisation works. Pretend I had to jump out of an airplane to get to the fires. Anyway, what's up with you, Miss Blush and Flustered?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Maddie sat primly in her leather desk chair.

Randy crossed his arms and said, "Gimme a break."

She sighed. "Oh, all right. It's that new coach–Wilcox. We had a fender bender this morning and then I falsely accused him of being a stalker. He made me feel like a complete idiot. Then he gets all your money for the new seats. And did you see the smirk on his face? I just wanted to smack him one."

Randy played one-handed catch with a coin. "You
have
had a busy morning. Don't feel too badly about the seats. We'll get them eventually. At least I got the full funding for the musical and materials for sets."

Maddie straightened the items on her already perfectly neat desk. "Good. Hopefully I won't have to cross paths with the coach very often."

Randy laughed. "Don't count on it. Before you arrived the chaperones for the Moonlight Madness Dance were announced. You and the Incredible Hunk are definitely on the list."

Maddie buried her face in her hands. "Don't tell me who else is assigned."

"That's right, your ardent admirer, Phineas Manchester and Phyllis Green, the gruesome gourmet."

Sinking her head down on the desk and groaning, she heard Randy's Bogart rendition from Casablanca, "
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine
..."

In youth, it was a way I had

To do my best to please,

And change, with every passing lad,

To suit his theories

But now I know the things I know,

And do the things I do;

And if you do not like me so,

To hell, my love, with you!

Dorothy Parker

Back in her snug little cabin that evening, Maddie gratefully took off her business clothes and slipped into comfortable slacks and a soft mock neck cotton top. She gazed around the bedroom. Thoughtful redecorating had kept her busy over the summer. Grammy's crammed plates and pictures on the walls had given way to a few dramatic watercolors over freshly painted buff walls. One of Grammy's more artistic quilts hung behind the bed. Another hung on a quilt stand in the corner. What a challenge to keep the best of her grandmother's touches, while making the space personally her own.

She wandered into the bathroom and pulled the pins and clips out of her hair, freeing it from its pent-up style. Maddie brushed it out and shook her head, enjoying the feeling of liberation. She swiveled her neck to release tension.

The three dots on her throat caught her attention. She lightly traced her fingers over them. How Thomas had brought that area of her body alive, her first erogenous zone. She remembered lying on a posh leather couch as he paid special attention to her throat, ear lobes, the lids of her closed eyes before he moved to other more obvious body parts.

Thomas…that smooth, urbane, college professor son of a bitch
.

Maddie clutched the rim of the marble sink and moved closer to the mirror. Did her past show? Was she turning into one of those classic black and white photos of wrinkled old women who wore every event and misfortune of their lives in the lines of their faces?

The surface of the mirror began to waver like a rock hitting a glassy pool. Grammy's face now stared back at Maddie. "What in tarnation did that scoundrel do to you anyway?"

Maddie didn't fight the hallucination. Her private talks with Grammy didn't really hurt anyone did they? Her subconscious needed some way to deal with her emotional baggage.

Her mind wandered to the day she met Thomas. They shared an umbrella to the Boston College English building. Her first day of teaching at the college level. As a tenured professor, he impressed her with his confident, worldly wit. He made her laugh and helped her through the first tenuous weeks.

Being impressed with her Woodbridge pedigree and Harris fame, he wined and dined her like a regular Prince Charming. Then he bedded her with equal elegance.

Her mother liked him. "I think Thomas is simply wonderful. He's just the intelligent, polished kind of man I've always hoped you'd find. Did you know he's related to British royalty?"

Beau Harris thought he was a phony from the get-go. "That guy is a stiff. If you call him 'Tom' he gets a sour look on his face and says 'my name is
Thomas
'. Do I insist everyone calls me 'Beauregard'? Hell no."

But, he was outnumbered when Maddie and Amanda both went ecstatic over wedding plans. Thomas Smithton and Madeleine Harris were engaged in a big public announcement at the annual New Years Eve bash. Their party took up the entire society page. The plans for the wedding, the showers, the honeymoon went on and on. Maddie bought special wedding planner software for her computer to keep it all straight.

The bloom went a little off the bud two months into the engagement. Thomas became short tempered and moody; lovemaking turned perfunctory on Saturday nights. Maddie tried all the harder to please him, agree with him. She bought him presents. Small criticisms of her hair, her body, her taste started to eat away her self-esteem in tiny bites. He had to know all her plans, her complete agenda of everyday. If he seemed a bit controlling, that just showed how much he cared. Shining moments of fun and passion became suddenly ruined by his peevish fits of temper. She chalked his moodiness up to work-related stress and doggedly kept on her rose-colored glasses.

Reality crashed the morning she opened up the Boston Buzz, a gossip rag, that had been mysteriously dropped on her doorstep. As she sat down at the small glass dining table in her brownstone apartment and dipped her tea bag in the steaming mug of hot water, she blinked the sleep out of her eyes to focus on the front-page pictures. An electric shock ran through her body as she recognized the love of her life, Thomas Smithton, in a large photograph, surrounded by six smaller pictures of pretty girls. College age girls. Maddie's picture was inserted in a box headlined "The Fiancée."

"Groom-to-be Exposed as College Casanova

Looks like love is on the rocks for well-known Boston socialite Madeleine Woodbridge Harris and her college professor beau, Thomas Smithton. According to a class-action lawsuit filed by pre-law student, Samantha Collins, Smithton has been diddling pretty freshman girls for years. He seduced the wrong girl this time. Collins alleges the silver-haired professor gives private lessons not mentioned in any class literature. Poor, poor Madeleine. And just a month before the big-blowout wedding. Wonder if she can get a refund on the reception hall?"

Recalling that last meeting in Thomas' office, Maddie wondered how many crow's feet began on that fateful day.

Holding the newspaper in her hand, Maddie had confronted her lover. "Please, Thomas, tell me this is all a terrible mistake."

"Of course it's a terrible mistake. Samantha will rue the day she took on Thomas Smithton," he said, putting books into a liquor store box.

Maddie sat down with relief. "So, it's all lies. Why would all those girls say these things?"

Thomas stopped and gave her an accusatory look. "Are you doubting me?"

"No! I just don't understand it. Why would they say you forced them to have sex with you?"

Thomas pursed his lips in perplexed annoyance. "You see, that is the falsehood of it. They stand there with their tight sweaters and short skirts, asking stupid questions after class. They're falling all over me and then accuse me of forcing them to have sex!"

"What?" Maddie's voice was low, stunned. "You did it? All those nineteen year olds? Those
children
?"

"Don't be such an idiot." He turned back to his packing. "Every one of them wanted it. Enjoyed it. I can't help it if girls all have stupid illusions of living happily ever after just because they've been laid."

"So it's all their fault? They seduced you and you couldn't help yourself, is that it?"

Thomas stopped and thought for a moment. "No. I suppose it's partly your fault, too."

Maddie stood up. "My fault? How is your shagging these freshmen my fault?"

"Well, if you'd been more satisfying, I wouldn't have had the energy or inclination, now would I?"

Maddie walked the campus that day feeling like the top of her head had been blown off. A spring rain pelted her face, but she'd barely noticed. Incoherent thoughts tracked through her mind mixed with images of Thomas, her parents, the newspaper headlines.

A litany of defining words ran through her mind: betrayed, manipulated, used, demeaned. Thomas was a big phony and she was a bigger idiot for not seeing through him.

Her stomach and chest hurt as if she'd been physically assaulted. She became one of the walking wounded.

Maddie stared into Grammy's ghostly image once again. "I've learned my lesson, Grammy. I need to be strong and independent, keep my emotions under lock and key. I'll never trust a man's smooth talk again. I should thank Thomas for showing me what men are really like."

Grammy scowled. "That's the biggest load of horse manure I ever heard."

"Oh, what do you know? You're just a figment of my imagination." Maddie pushed herself away from the mirror, and pretended she hadn't seen anything unusual.

Her eyes focused on the early pregnancy test she'd purchased in the grocery store. Still a little early to get a true reading.
Who are you kidding? You don't want to face that possibility yet.

Being pregnant would blow her carefully built life to smithereens. After leaving Boston in humiliation and despair, moving to Arkansas had been her salvation. She'd spent precious time with Grammy while making her place at Beaver Cove High. While not a great career, she enjoyed working with the teens. She loved the beauty of the Ozarks. Being an unmarried pregnant assistant principal would not be acceptable in this part of the Bible belt. And imagine the wagging tongues in Boston if she returned home unemployed and pregnant.

So, she could get an abortion, right?

She imagined lying on a paper-covered vinyl examining table with her feet up in the cold steel stirrups. A shiver ran through her body.

Abortion had always been a social issue until now. Something to discuss in women's awareness groups. Up close and personal, it took on completely new dimensions. Could she scrape away a chance at motherhood?

The whole baby issue was too confusing and so she put it off a little while longer. Like Scarlett O'Hara, she'd think about it tomorrow.

* * *

The first week of school went pretty well for Phil. Teaching history to hormone happy teens provided an interesting challenge. Who would have thought it? Phil looked back on the brash, egocentric kid he used to be and knew that the last decade had transformed his inner man. He spent more time considering the people around him, what made them tick. All these kids going through his classroom and across his playing field had stories of their own. Maybe he could make a positive contribution along the way and make up for his screw-ups of the past.

Out on the practice field after school, the fledgling football team hit it hard. Perspiration dripped off adolescent foreheads, drenched uniform armpits. Oh, yeah, Phil loved the smell of turf and sweat. With the first game four days away, they had a ways to go. Phil had decided on three key plays and drilled them over and over.

"Come on, you candyasses! Get in there Morely! Now, Martinez!"

The quarterback overshot the ball to his receiver.

Phil inwardly groaned, but put a positive spin on it. "All right! That was better. Do it again!"

So intent on his players, Phil didn't notice an observer in the stands until she yelled, "Run, for God's sake! You got rocks in your pants or what?"

Phil turned around and spotted Melissa, his hostile, distant daughter. Their visitations of the last couple weeks remained strained, but at least they had taken place. He'd given up expecting a full weekend. He'd been grateful for a trip to McDonald's and a couple of hours at a movie. But seeing her in the stands might signal a definite improvement in their relationship.

Phil told his assistant, Stu, to run the plays. Stu lacked any athletic ability, but Phil recognized his analytical and leadership abilities as assets for the team.

Phil climbed the bleacher steps two at a time to reach Melissa, who sat in the middle of the empty metal benches. "Hey, kiddo, this is a pleasant surprise. How did you get here? Does your mom know where you are?"