Chapter Five
T
he ride home from my dinner celebration was so quiet that I could hear the loose gravel on the road skeet beneath the tires and pop up against the bottom of the car as Evan and I drove along. The grainy bursts reminded me of the hits I'd been taking all evening at my birthday celebration.
I was no fool. I knew Jr was just trying to twist up my thoughts to get his way, but I kept thinking maybe in his errors there was something correct. Maybe he was right. Maybe I couldn't sing because I hadn't been singing. Not outside of my classroom. Then I started thinking about why I'd left the choir in the first place. I said I wanted to focus on my students. It was true, but really, right before I left, I just kept feeling like I'd done everything I could do for the choir. It had been twenty years. I was ready to move on. But to what? Shifting things around in my purse, my eyes went from the empty passport to the empty notepad. Even thinking I could make up the next step hadn't helped me find one.
It might've helped if I could talk to someone about these questions that were pitching against my brain, but Billie was so busy getting over Clyde and sometimes talking to my mother seemed impossibleâshe was so caught up in the things she wanted for my life. Then there was my perfect husbandâthe other person I was taking hits from all night, who was sitting next to me in silence.
I was still reeling from what he told my parents at dinner and I had nothing to say to him.
Evan hadn't necessarily been in rare form. His desire to be in the good favor of my father usually led to him agreeing with my father's constant hovering and dictation over my life. But he'd had some nerve twisting my words in front of my parents and making it seem as if we'd discussed and agreed to something he knew full well I said I needed more time with.
By the time we neared our house and Evan turned onto the dark, winding half-mile road that led to the driveway, I realized that my silence wasn't being refuted. In fact, it was becoming clear that Evan wasn't speaking to me either. As we swung into the driveway, I noticed that he hadn't turned on the radio, opened the windows, or even let down the topâas he usually did during these warmer spring nights. Disgusted that he could be playing upset when I was the one with reason to be on edge, I rolled my eyes and looked to him as he turned off the car. His face was tight and dismissive. He saw my glare, but he only slid the key from the ignition and opened his door, letting out an exaggerated groan.
“Okay, then,” I said, still sitting in my seat as I waited for him to dare not come open my door. I was ready to fight. Not only had he discounted my feelings, but now he had the nerve to downplay my position by having his own. This was typical Evan. In any situation, he had to be the center of attention. Even the attention he gave on his own seemed to come with a price tag.
I sat and watched as he walked slowly and methodically from his door and then over to mine, taking his time as if helping me had now become a chore.
“So, you didn't want to open the door for me?” I asked.
“Don't start,” he said gruffly. “I just want to get in the house and go to bed. I don't want to argue.”
He slammed the door behind me and headed quickly toward the house. I knew what he was doing. He wanted to let my anger roll away in the middle of the night and then wake up in the morning cheeryfaced and smiling, as if nothing had happened. Like my brother and any other man who ever tried to close a conversation by saying, “I don't want to argue,” he meant he wanted to avoid a confrontation and quietly get his way. But it was too late for that. My birthday had already been ruined and I was ready to fight.
“I want to talk about what happened.”
“Journey, I'm tired and if I was slow opening your door, I'm sorry.”
“You know that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how you acted in front of my parents,” I blurted out, charging behind him into the house. “You spoke for me like ... like ... it's the Middle Ages or something.”
“Don't overreact. No one was trying to speak for you. I was just answering their questions.” His voice sounded more pained and stressed with each word. He was trying to make developing an explanation for my questions seem like work, so I would appear more ridiculous. Like I was being irrational.
“Don't patronize me. You know what I mean, Evan. You know I never said I was ready to have a baby. I said we could talk about it this summer. Not go ahead and get pregnant. That's a big step. We need to figure it out.”
“A big step? Figure it out?” His voice grew loud and echoed up and down the stairs in the middle of the vestibule. “Do you see this?” He raised his hands and turned around, looking at the house. “Do you see our lives? We're married. Are you going somewhere? Do you plan on going somewhere? What do you think is out there? Somebody else? Something better?” He walked over to me and stared into my eyes. “'Cause I know ain't no man gonna love you like I can. I'm not going anywhere and if you're not”âhe put his arms around my waistâ“there's nothing else to figure out. Let's not fight about it.”
I heard everything Evan was saying and it made perfect sense, but I wanted more time and I couldn't find another way of explaining it to him.
“It's more than that,” I said.
Evan dropped his hands and turned his back to me. He was quiet and he raised his hand to wipe his face.
“What more do you want from me?” he asked, his voice helpless and broken. “I'm a good husband. A good provider.” He turned to face me. “I come home every night. I don't cheat on you. Never have. Not in twenty-five years.
Never
.” He came closer and I could see tears in his eyes. “I haven't tried to do anything but love you and make you happy. Provide a life for us. I waited ten years just to be your husband. I promised you I'd give you everything and you have it. Why can't you just do this for me?”
He looked at me and as we stood there quietly, motionless, I watched as his chest just sank in. Seemingly crushed, he slowly pulled off his tie and walked up the spiral staircase to our bedroom.
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Lying in bed beside Evan, his back twisted tight and his face pointed away from me, I struggled hard to keep my position. But I was hurting now. The anger inside of me began to lessen as I suffered Evan's pain. My feelings aside, I knew Evan was a good man. He was right. He was a great husband and I didn't want to hurt him.
From my side of our king-sized, four-poster bed, my thoughts drifted to the beginning of my relationship with Evan. Before the pressure and everybody's opinions. Before we could even imagine sleeping in a bed together, in a house that was our own, in a town that we'd sworn was too small to ever consider for forever.
He'd asked me to be his girlfriend in the third grade.
“Just be my girl until Anne Toomer moves back here in the summer,”
he'd begged, splitting a little piece of Mary Jane candy with me at the river behind my daddy's first church where they used to baptize people.
“You gonna give me candy everyday ?”
I asked, unsure of what a girlfriend was anyway.
“My mama says ain't no chil'en supposed to have sweets every day,”
he responded. I sighed and then he gave me the other half of the Mary Jane.
“I guess I can disobey her though ... for you Journey Lynn Cash.”
I ate Evan's piece, Anne Toomer never came back to Alabama and we've been together ever since.
He'd been my best friend. Twenty-five years. That had to count for something. I could trace nearly every smiling moment of my life back to him. And while this knowledgeâthat I'd only realized a few years agoâboth annoyed and stunned me at the same time, it was comfortable and Evan's presence alone always made me feel connected to something. He wasn't perfect, but I loved him.
Being a mother wouldn't be a bad thing I supposed. I thought of how much joy my brothers and I brought to my parents' lives, the fact that May couldn't even have children, and Zenobia, a girl with the rest of her life ahead of her, had one she couldn't even take care of. Suddenly, laying next to my husband, my feelings seemed selfish. I was scared of something Zenobia went running toward and May dreamed of. Opal's mother was right. It was the next step.
“I'm sorry,” I said softly, not knowing if Evan was still awake.
He exhaled and rolled over onto his back.
“I didn't want to fight,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
“I don't know what came over me at dinner. I'm just so excited. I can't wait to be a father.” He looked at me sadly. “But if you want to wait.... I guess we can talk about it this summer.”
“No,” I said, remembering his sweet face out by the river that afternoon. “You're right. Maybe it's time. I don't know what I'm waiting for. We'd be great parents.” I thought of seeing another pudgy, yellow face like his walking around and smiled.
“You just made me the happiest man in the world,” he said, sitting up and letting the sheet fall from his naked chest. Evan never worked out, but after years of doing work for his father's moving company when we were teenagers, he had a naturally powerful build. In the moonlight coming in from the French doors of our bedroom, I could see the muscles in his pecs tighten as he bent down to kiss me. His lips were soft, his kiss forceful, as it always was when we made love.
“Wait,” he said, pulling away from me.
He pushed me onto my back and slid his arms between my arms and my body, opening my legs with his and then lowered himself toward me. His kissing became more passionate and he moved his hips in a way that made my body grow hot. As he pulled my nightgown over my head, I caressed his penis and kissed his chest.
“I love you,” he said, sliding off his boxers. “I love you so much.” He came down and pressed himself into me. I quickly wrapped my legs around him and kissed him on the neck.
“I love you, too.”
Chapter Six
“F
ight!” I heard someone holler from out in the hallway in what seemed like seconds after the fourth-period bell rang and my students were hustling out the door. I'd just slid my purse over my shoulder and was heading to the conference room for an emergency Wednesday lunch meeting the principal, Mr. Williams, had announced via a red slip in our mailboxes on Tuesday afternoon.
“Oh, no,” I said, dropping the bag quickly and putting it back into my locking drawer. I'd broken up many fightsâit came with the job nowadaysâbut somehow, each one had its own set of complications. The new ones sometimes included weapons and students so bold they weren't afraid to hit teachersâknock them over the head for trying to break up the fight. We'd gotten security guards into the school to deal with these kinds of issues, but still, the teachers were expected to respond initially. This presented me with another set of worries, because even though I loved the Lord, I wasn't sure how I'd react if one of the children put their hands on me.
Help me, Holy Ghost!
The students still left in the room, bumping into each other like blind bees, began to push to see what was going on outside.
“Fight!” someone yelled again as I tried to make my way through the tight throng. Outside of the door and in the center of a chaotic circle of violence-thirsty students was Zenobia and Patrice locked up chest to chest.
“You stupid-ass bitch,” Zenobia shouted, twisting herself and somehow getting Patrice around and into a headlock. Patrice's belly poked out far and unprotected, a stretch appearing naked beneath her tight T-shirt. She shook and wrestled to get away, but, rushing in, I could see that Zenobia had a tight hold. “He don't fucking love you,” Zenobia went on. “He ain't gonna ever love you.”
“Break it up,” I screamed, trying to force my way between them. “Someone call security! Security! Security,” I hollered, knowing it would be a minute before they made it to the back of the building where the music room was located. As I attempted to pry Zenobia's hands from around Patrice's throat, I saw that Patrice was turning red and probably losing air.
“Let her go. She pregnant,” one of the boys yelled.
“Let her go, Zenobia,” I said. “You don't want to do this.”
“She came over here fucking with me,” Zenobia snarled. “I was minding my business.”
“Let her go!”
One of the boys jumped in and tried to help me get the girls apart and when he did, I took a hold of Zenobia to restrain her, but Patrice came swinging and nearly hit my head. She landed a punch right in Zenobia's face.
“You want some, bitch?” Patrice yelled and I jumped back, thinking maybe she was talking to me.
Zenobia got away from me and charged Patrice, swinging her arms wildly. The entire crowd swayed with each step they took. Everything was moving so fast that I was afraid to get into it. Two boys finally grabbed Patrice again and I seized Zenobia with another student.
“Take her to the office,” I screamed, out of breath.
“Fuck that! Let that bitch go. I'll drop that load for her! She don't want to see me!” Zenobia was still rapping, even as I pulled her toward my classroom.
“And Mike don't want you. He don't want your stanky pussy no way,” Patrice cried.
“Get her to the office,” I said again to the boys. “And the rest of you, go to the cafeteria.”
When I finally got Zenobia into my room and seated at my desk, I realized that one of my earrings had fallen out in the tussle and my bun was hanging loose.
“What was that?” I asked, standing in front of Zenobia at the desk. She was still hot and looking like she wanted to race out of the room and find Patrice. If she had, she might've made it. I was worn out.
“I just told you,” she said. “She came over here to fight me. I was just leaving class and she came up in my face ... man, fuck this ...” She kicked my desk.
“Zenobia, don't you dare use that language in here,” I hollered. She just looked away and didn't say anything. “Now, it doesn't matter who attacked whom.” I swiveled the chair around toward me. “That girl is pregnant. If you hurt her, you'd be arrested. Do you understand that?”
“Well, she'd be arrested, too ... for hitting me.” Zenobia's voice dented and she slackened a bit in the seat.
“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked and suddenly I remembered the little pouch I'd noticed beneath Zenobia's shirt the week before.
“You know what it mean.”
“You're pregnant?”
She didn't say anything. She just looked down at the floor and shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, Zenobia.” I got up and closed the door. “How did this.... What happened? You just had a baby.” I stopped and looked at her. “Is it Michael's?”
“Yes,” she said. “I ain't no ho.”
“You're still seeing him? Even after he got Patrice pregnant?”
Disturbed, I sat down on top of the desk beside Zenobia.
Mr. Gentry, one of the security guards, burst into the room.
“What's going on?” he asked with his hands clutching the weapons strapped to either side of his hips. “You been fighting?” He walked over to Zenobia. She kept her head bowed and focused on her knees. Her big talk had gone with the crowd. “Wild girl. You always in trouble.”
“It was a fight,” I said. “One student is in the office and ... I'll bring Zenobia down in a second. She needs to cool down.”
“You sure?” he asked. “This one's evil as a snake.”
“Yeah, I'll walk her down. Don't worry.”
“Okay,” he said, looking at me doubtfully as he inched away. “I'm going to be waiting at the end of the hall in case something happens.”
“Great.”
When Mr. Gentry walked out and I was alone with Zenobia again, I didn't know what to say. I was so disappointed. Zenobia wasn't the best student. But she was smart and if she'd just lose some of the anger she had, she could actually graduate from high school and maybe one day support herself and her baby. This was saying a lot at a high school where fifty percent of our students either didn't graduate or receive a standard high school diploma.
“How did you get into this, Zenobia?” I asked finally. “You already know what it's like to have a baby. It's not easy.”
“I can't let her just take him,” she said, looking at the door. “She having a boy. He wanted a boy.”
“So you got pregnant to keep Michael?”
“No, it ain't like that. I love him.”
“But, Zenobia, he's sleeping with other girls. And is he taking care of your first child?”
“He be with Mikayla,” she said. “He loves her. And we was talking about getting a place too. But he gonna have to pay for Patrice's baby. Her mama gonna take him to court soon as he get a job. She told him.”
“That's not just Patrice's baby. It's his too. Look, what are you going to do now?” I asked. “Have you told your mother?”
“No. She gonna kill me. Tried to the first time.” Zenobia bent over in her seat and started crying.
“You have to tell her,” I said, massaging her back as she cried, “so you two can come up with a plan together.”
“Why did he have to get Patrice pregnant? He so stupid. She told him she was gonna do it.”
“You can't think about what everybody else is doing; you have to focus on what's best for you and your baby,” I said. “And you start by telling your mother.”
“I can't,” she said. “I can't tell her.”
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“We're just waiting on Ms. Davis and then we'll get started,” Mr. Williams said, sitting at the head of the table in our conference room, surrounded by chatting teachers and administrators. “I think Superintendent DeLong will be running a bit late”âhe looked down at his watchâ“so, we'll get started without him.” A former art teacher who'd been promoted to principal after the last No Child Left Behind sweep came through our school and led to all of the administrators being fired due to low test scores, Williams maintained little respect from the staff and most times it seemed we were just tolerating his leadership. He was a short, sunken-in, yellow man, who always looked lost and boyish in the suits he wore. If it wasn't for his balding head and graying beard, visitors would think he was a student and trample right past him. He wasn't the type of person you'd expect to see leading one of the most troubled schools in the state, but as Evan said, there wasn't exactly a list of people signing up for the low-paying, high-pressure position. So, he was it.
As we sat and waited for Ms. Davis, I noticed an attractive, dark-skinned woman sitting beside Mr. Williams. I'd never seen her before and I knew she wasn't from Tuscaloosa because she was wearing a sharp, tailored wine-colored suit that I was certain could be found nowhere in the state. I wondered if she was from the government, No Child Left Behind again, and she was coming to fire everyone or, worse, shut down the school altogether.
“Sorry, y'all,” Billie said, running into the room with the look of a tardy student on her face. “I had tutorial.” She looked around the room; her eyes, which were filled with anger she'd managed to conceal with her voice, nearly set Clyde on fire when she saw him sitting in the back of the room, two suspicious chairs down from Ms. Lindsey. I coughed to get her attention and keep her from going back thereâas everyone but Clyde and Ms. Lindsey had hopedâand signaled that there was an empty seat next to me. Billie had been doing a fine job of parading Mustafa around every place in town in just two days. And as I suspected, most of these places were frequented by Clyde. But against lady lovebird's best wishes, he had yet to be in the right place at the right time.
“Thank you, Ms. Davis,” Mr. Williams said as Billie sat down. “Now I know no one is happy about this meeting, and we all want to get to lunch, but it's necessary.”
“Don't tell me we don't have a speaker for graduation again this year,” Ms. Anderson, the history teacher, said. Everyone groaned at the thought. “We ain't got but a lick to go.”
“No, no ...” Mr. Williams said. “Let's not try to guess what the matter is. And also, it's a good thing.”
“Good,” Ms. Anderson replied, “because I don't need somebody's uncle to go up there and put me to sleep again.”
People started laughing and the meeting was off to growing into an example of how it was equally difficult to manage adult teachers and young students. We too had prom queens, class clowns, gossip girls, a class president, and even a jock with the new girl making out in the back. We even separated ourselves like the kids: the school someone went to, the fraternity or sorority they pledged, the side of town they grew up on made the difference between close friends and associates, best friends and working enemies. The only difference between us and the students was age and the fact that we preferred to call each other “Mr.” and “Mrs.”âand even that could be done without being totally polite.
“Well, we could just have Reverend Cash speak since his daughter works here.... I mean, if he has time,”
Ms
. Angie Martin, the chemistry teacher, and my former elementary school enemy, said trying to sound helpful, but really more hateful. After our run-in in elementary school, she'd become even more sour on me in high school when Evan refused to make out with her in the boys' locker room. Things only got worse when I went to Alabama and she went to Stillman and we pledged different sororities. Ms. MartinâAngieâwas purely nasty to me and she had a circle of grown-up girls to help her out.
“No, as I said,” Mr. Williams went on, sounding a bit annoyed nowâhe was losing control, “we don't need a speaker. I called this meeting for two reasons. And in order to get things going before DeLong gets here, I'll just start by introducing the person next to me, who most of you probably don't know.”
He gestured toward the strange woman from out of town and everyone got quiet, eager to discover who the new face was.
“This is Ms. Kayla Kenley. She's here to take over Ms. Oliver's biology class while Ms. Oliver is out on maternity leave. Ms. Kenley is a graduate of New York University. She's taught science at the Math and Science Academy in Manhattan and while she mostly teaches teachers now in the education program at Columbia University, we're lucky enough to have her for the last few weeks of the school year. We hope she'll leave an indelible impression on our students and pray she'll join us next year, as Ms. Oliver will still be out for a few weeks. Let's welcome her.”
Everyone clapped and Ms. Kenley smiled accordingly, saying a few friendly words as Evan slipped into the room behind her.
“Oh, the man of the hour,” Mr. Williams said, his face brightening when he noticed Evan behind him. “You're right on time.”