Somewhere Between Black and White (7 page)

She lay on the couch holding her wine
glass, her other arm stretched above her, when Christian came through the front
door.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he said before noticing
the glass in her hand. When he made his way over, he sat on the coffee table
across from her and frowned. “What’s up?”

She said nothing as she rubbed her head.

He took the glass and set it on the
table. “Babe?”

Evie breathed in deeply, hoping that her
voice wouldn’t quiver when she spoke. “I was at the mall shopping with Sophie
today, and we saw you in that gallery, talking with . . . someone.”

His forehead scrunched a few seconds. “Tall
redhead?”

She pressed her lips together and
covered her eyes.

“Evie.” He gently pulled her hand from
her face and took it in his. “I don’t know what you thought you saw, but that’s
what’s called schmoozing. I didn’t want to say anything. Tara, the person you
saw, is the director of the gallery and an acquaintance of Mom’s. Mom convinced
her to agree to meet with me so I could show her my work, and possibly get it
in the gallery.”

Evie needed to believe him, but didn’t
want to be taken for a fool. “If that was schmoozing, then what were the
terms?”

“Seriously?”

She sat up on the sofa. “You’ve told me
that I need to leave, so maybe you’re just trying to make it easier.”

“I can’t believe this.” Exasperated, Christian
stood and began pacing. “I thought you would be happy that I’ve actually taken some
steps to do something.”

“It didn’t look right.”

Christian shook his head as if she were
out of her mind, making her all the more apprehensive. “Evie, I wouldn’t do
that,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I already bring you enough grief.”

“Stop saying that! If you’re the one who
wants to leave, then leave.” She picked up her glass and leaned sideways
against the back of the sofa, drawing her knees to her chest.

Christian sighed. He sat down behind
her, rested his chin on her shoulder and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Do
you honestly think anyone else is going to be crazy enough to put up with me?”

“It seemed like you were doing all right.”

“C’mon,” he whispered. He gave her a
squeeze, before pushing her hair behind her ear. “It’s always been you. Since
high school. How can you not know that?”

She remembered. He had such a huge crush
on her back then, so awkward and adorable. She fondly envisioned the rail-thin
boy with braces, carrying around that sketchbook everywhere he went.

One day after class, he had handed her a
folded piece of spiral notebook paper. Assuming it was a note, she opened it to
find a masterful sketch he had done of her while sitting at his desk. He’d
already slipped away before she could say anything. 

But he had succeeded in leaving his imprint
on her heart.

Evelyn released a breath and turned her face
toward him. “I’m sorry.” She suddenly felt as if she had blown this whole thing
out of proportion.

“For what?” He kissed her ear. “Now, let’s
get rid of this,” he said, taking her wine to the kitchen.

Ten

Sophie arrived in the private courtyard
of the school a few minutes early to start setting up drinks for the pizza
lunch, which rewarded a handful of students each month. Students could earn
citizenship stamps, and a certain number of stamps would buy them various
rewards, the lunch being one of them. She lined up the plastic red cups, each
row having a different flavored soda.

Her head was all over the place. She’d
purposely refrained from calling Evie, allowing her to initiate any
conversation regarding Christian, and it was killing her. Killing her! Then
there was Sam, and that blissful but indescribable first kiss she couldn’t
discard. Though nothing out of the ordinary had happened since, her thoughts
often returned to that night. There was no making sense of it. And guessing his
middle name? What was that about?

Giving herself a headache, she decided
to shift her attention to the daily grind, and tried to come up with an
effective way to get her loud-mouthed eighth graders to come in after lunch at
a reasonable volume, without having to bellow at them. Over the years, she had
discovered that the louder she was, the louder they got. After a while they were
immune to the yelling. Besides, all that carrying on made Sophie feel worse.
These days, she kept her shouting to a minimum. When she did have to resort to
it, her students were usually stunned into silence because it was such a rare
occurrence.

What happened to kids anyway? Or was it
the adults who had changed? At the end of each year, some of her students would
tease her about how relieved she would be once they were gone. Her response was
always that she would miss them as individuals. But as a group? Not so much.
That didn’t apply to all her classes, of course. The truth of the matter was
that the majority of the kids were positively delightful when relating with
them on a one-to-one basis.

On the other hand, the manner in which
many of them interacted with
each other
was often obnoxious. Rude,
gossipy, and mean, no matter how much Sophie preached to them. These were the
times in which Sophie wondered if she took them too seriously, because they
always argued it was just their way of playing with each other. Sophie didn’t
care, or buy it, for that matter. Why did playing around have to involve
cutting to the bone?

Sophie was just thankful she was at a
school whose students were relatively well-behaved, for she’d heard horror
stories from those who had come from truly awful places. Like their principal
once said, at worst, the students here were rambunctious.

One by one, students began filtering
into the courtyard, where they took seats at one of the tables and waited to be
called to get their pizza. It was always a small group, about thirty kids. 

Sophie responded to the occasional
“thank you” as the students picked up their food, and she proceeded to stack
the empty pizza boxes underneath the table. After the students were all seated
and eating, Sophie leaned on the outer window sill and sat quietly.

She watched one boy in particular, who
was seated with a table of girls, but didn’t really speak with any of them. He
was quiet, not terribly big. There were three boys sitting at the next table,
joking about something amongst themselves. Sophie couldn’t be sure, but she got
the distinct impression that they were talking about the other boy. One student
from the small group, wearing a red jacket, got up to get more pizza and
stopped along the way, saying something to the boy. She didn’t like Red Jacket’s
menacing expression.

The boy who was seated remained
unexpressive, then stood and took his plate and cup to the garbage. He was
actually taller than she realized, but quite skinny. Clearly not wanting to
return to his seat, the dishwater blond whose hoodie was two sizes too big for
him approached Sophie.

“How are you today?” he asked.

“I’m good.” She smiled. “And how are
you?” 

“Just wonderful! My name is Ian.” He held
his hand out to her.

“Nice to meet you, Ian. I’m Miss Cook.”
She was completely taken off guard by the politeness and maturity of this boy.

“It’s pretty hot out today.” He was
wearing black, and it was unusually warm for fall. “Do you mind if I stand over
here by you in the shade?”

“Not at all.” It didn’t take long to
notice the somewhat feminine quality to his speech, and Sophie was quickly
beginning to understand the scene she had witnessed.

“So what do you teach, Miss Cook?” he
asked, genuinely interested.

“Computers. I’m the room right next to
the library.” 

“Oh, yes. I know where that is. Do you
like teaching computers?”  On and on he continued this conversation with her,
asking how long she’d been teaching, how long she’d been at the school, and
whether she enjoyed it. He was absolutely charming; students this age rarely
took the initiative to express interest in an adult. She hated being so cynical
by wondering if there was some ulterior motive. However, he was not a student
of hers, so there couldn’t have been a kissing-up factor involved, at least, none
that she was aware of.  Although she understood he was escaping the company of
his peers, he could have as easily droned on about video games or some T.V.
show. Instead, he graciously focused the conversation on her.

A little bit of a breeze kicked up,
blowing some of the empty cups into a planter.

“Excuse me,” Sophie said as she went to
pick them up.

“I’ll get them.” Ian eagerly jumped into
the planter to start collecting them.

Wherever did this little dude come from?
He is an angel!
He stayed behind to assist her with cleaning
up after most of the students had gone, helping her fold table cloths and take
left over supplies into the teachers’ lounge.

“Ian, it was a pleasure to meet you, and
it was great talking with you today,” Sophie said, shaking his hand again before
heading back to her class.

“It was nice talking with you, too, Miss
Cook. Have a good day!” He threw the last couple of paper plates into the
garbage, then waved before disappearing through the door.

Those are the kids you need to focus on
when you think you’ve had it.
It was kind of ironic,
for she and Sam had a conversation about this very thing. She had gone in Sam’s
class once to watch him in action, and she wondered how he stayed so patient
and calm. Not that the kids were doing anything horrible, but his composure
definitely had a rippling effect.

“Don’t let me fool you,” he said. “I
have my moments, just like everyone else. Besides, once again, you’re
second-guessing yourself too much.”

“I don’t know.”

“Try to think about the gems, even when
the others are giving you shit. They’re always there, but the difficult ones
pull us away from seeing them.”

Ian was one of the gems, and Sophie was
uncharacteristically relaxed as she headed to her fifth period class, which was
normally one of her biggest sources of stress. Strangely, she found her
students were different as well. Not once that hour did any of them say
something hurtful or nasty. They even bordered on being kind to one another. It
was a good day.

However, she was going to make an effort
to keep an eye on her new friend, Ian.

Eleven

“I have never been able to do that.” Sophie
tossed another popcorn kernel Sam’s way.

They lay facing each other, one on each
end of his couch. Sam leaned to the side and caught another one in his mouth.
“You have to be quick,” he bragged, like it was a special talent.

“Let me try.”

A piece of popcorn hit her on the nose.
Then another one in the eye. She felt like an idiot trying to catch the damn
things. “I can’t do it!” She laughed. Before long, ten or more pieces were
hitting her at a time. “Hey, knock it off!”

“Well, I thought if you had a few coming
at you at once, you might be able to catch at least one. But it’s clear you
don’t have the gift.”

“I guess we all have our failings,” she
said.

Sam quit pelting her and set the bowl on
the floor. “Come over here.” 

She crawled over to him and lay on his
stomach, her socks rubbing against his bare feet.  Louis Armstrong’s “La Vie En
Rose” played faintly on the old jazz station, a love they both shared. Sophie
had always felt she was born out of her time. She had a fondness for 40s music
and fashion since she was a child. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny
Goodman—she loved jazz and swing.

When she was about ten years old, she
had one of those old-fashioned, domed-shaped radios in her room, and couldn’t
understand why it played Billy Idol and not big band. The first time Sam had
the stuff playing on his stereo, she could hardly believe it. She had never met
anyone her age who was into it.

“You should wear your bangs shorter. Stop
hiding those gorgeous eyes.” He brushed them out of the way. She scooted up a
bit more so she could reach to kiss him, tasting the salt on his lips.

“I could cut them again, if you like,”
she offered.

“No, please don’t do that.” He chuckled.
“Leave that to a professional, I beg you.”

“You sure?” She sat up and pulled her
bangs straight up in the air.

He studied her carefully. “On second
thought. . . .”

“I could get some of that Bed Head
stuff. That would make them stay this way.”

“Or I could offer up my personal homemade
gel,” he said with a flash of his eyebrows. “High in protein. Very good for
your hair.”

Sophie choked out a strange noise in
response. “Sam!” She grabbed a pillow and smacked him in the face with it. “You
are so bad!”

He swiftly flipped her onto her back,
tickling her relentlessly, making her squeal and giggle. Only when she tired of
fighting back did he finally take mercy on her. He lay on top of her, so that
his face was close to hers.