Teacher's Pet Complete Series (30 page)

“Dad!”

“Lynora.” He scratched his fully bearded chin, as he usually did when he was irritated, and my eyes flew to his face. It occurred to me he was growing older. The thought stuck in my head as I stared much longer than I wanted. His beard was light brown to beige, with tufts of gray. There were crinkles at the corners of his eyes and smile lines creasing his cheeks. He wore a concerned expression, as if he was trying to understand what madness fueled my erratic behavior.

But could he understand the fear gnawing at my insides that I might never get to see Simon’s beard go to gray? I held my tears in check. My father replied gently, “Look, it’s important you attend your graduation, sweetheart. Events like this only come along once in a lifetime. So, whoever this is, this…this Simon…and whatever the situation he’s gotten himself into, I’m sure he can wait. We can stop by the hospital afterwards.”

“I agree,” my mother chimed in. “Listen to your father, Lynora. Be sensible. We’ll stop by the hospital after the ceremony.”

“Well, that’s not acceptable.” I turned to Dane, because he hadn’t made a sound. I was hoping he could provide some much-needed backup. It was his brother we were talking about, after all.

“You should listen to your parents,” he muttered gruffly. He looked at me with cold, steely eyes. He stared for several seconds before he turned to look out of the window at the busy street. A sadness I couldn’t explain spiraled at my core, and I realized I wouldn’t get any help from him. I found myself going from sad to angry. I glared at each of them, trying to make them see how important this was to me, but what I got staring back was anything but an understanding.

“I can’t believe this! It’s my graduation, and it’s my decision. It’s not up to either one of you. No disrespect, Mom and Dad, but I’m an adult now.” I started stripping off my graduation cap and the gown because it was getting too damned hot, and besides, I no longer wanted to wear them. My body temperature rose as my anger continued to simmer—if I could strip to my underwear, I would. “Dane?” I said challengingly, and he had no choice but to look at me. “Either you tell the driver to turn this car around, or I’ll get out and walk or take a bus. You know I will.”

“I wasn’t done.”

“What? What do you mean you weren’t done?”

“I wasn’t done speaking. What I was trying to say was you should listen to your parents…but I know you won’t, so…Sam?” The driver looked again in the rearview mirror. “Take us to Stanford Hospital. That is, if you can get through this madness anytime soon.” My eyes teared up again with appreciation. Dane was going to help. I clasped his hand in mine and gratefully squeezed, but he eased his hand away. My smile didn’t falter. Even if his assistance was reluctant, he was taking me where I needed to be, so I had to be good with that.

I didn’t know what he meant about getting through the madness, but as I glanced back out of the rear window, I found out soon enough. The streets were jam-packed with cars and students walking the roads on their way to graduation. The traffic stretched away as far as I could see. I groaned. “Shit!” I cried out.

“Lynora, language!”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” I glanced apologetically in her direction, but I followed it up with more curses under my breath. How on earth were we going to navigate out of this mess? Having a stretch limousine was great under normal circumstances, but in this instance it was a nightmare. We could barely pull away from the curb and hadn’t moved in what seemed ages but had to be minutes. The cars were bumper to bumper, horns blaring and people shouting. We were getting nowhere, and we were doing it fast. The panic that had threatened before eased its cold fingers back down my spine. If I couldn’t get to Simon, there was no telling what would happen to him.

“Let me out.” I reached for the door, but it was locked. Apparently the driver controlled that too. I growled in frustration, and I looked at Dane. “Let me out of this car!” I desperately yanked at the door handle over and over.

“You’ll break the door,” Dane said, with some alarm.

“We will not let you out.” My father spoke up, a deep rumble in his chest. His face was flushed red and his look was stern and angry, no longer patient and trying to appear understanding. I froze. “Now, your mother and I drove all this way to see you graduate, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen!” He pulled at the lapel of his favorite blue shirt, a polyester-rayon-looking thing that made him sweat buckets when it was hot. Dark ovals spread from his armpits, and sweat had begun to bead on his face. I searched his unyielding eyes. “You’re going to sit in your seat and hope that we beat this traffic somehow. Dane?” Dane turned to my father. “I appreciate the accommodations, young man. I truly do. But is there any way you can get us around this mess? We have someplace important to be, if you know what I mean.”

Dane nodded without speaking, and the driver honked the horn. Sam continued honking his horn in short and extended bursts, as if he were sending Morse code across the city. He would honk and move forward, bullying his way through, playing chicken with cars that tried to get ahead and winning the game every time. My foot began to tap restlessly. We were finally moving, but we were headed in the wrong direction.
Fine
, I thought. If I would be forced to go the graduation, then so be it. As soon as I had marched across the stage, I planned to make my escape—if we could just get there!

We still weren’t moving fast enough for my taste, and, I had to be honest, I was very upset with being put in my place, regardless of it being my own father who put me there. I slumped back in my seat with my arms folded over my chest. Admittedly, I’m sure I looked like a spoiled child, but I wasn’t being bratty. I was scared. My fickle mind, momentarily resigned to going to the graduation, rapidly flip-flopped back to an urgent need to get to Simon.

I pleaded with Dane. “Don’t you care that it’s your brother in the hospital? No matter how bitter you are, or jealous, or whatever it is, he’s still your flesh and blood, and he could die for all we know,” I reasoned. “Caroline wasn’t specific about how badly he was injured. Aren’t you even the least bit compelled to see how he’s doing? Don’t you have a heart for your family?”

“He’s not my family!” Dane whipped his head around, breathing hard enough for smoke to flare from his nostrils. I pulled back at the force of his response. A span of time passed before he looked at my parents and realized that he was yelling at me in front of them. “I’m sorry, Lynn, Mr. and Mrs. Minnelli.” He calmed himself. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but—just because Simon and I share the same blood doesn’t make us family. I didn’t even know he existed until a year or two ago, and in case you forgot, he threatened me last time he saw me. So no, as callous as it might seem to you, I don’t feel compelled. No, I don’t think of him as family, and no, I’m absolutely not going to see how he’s doing.”

“Excuse me, sir,” the driver interrupted, “I think I’ve found a clear enough path. We’ll be arriving at our destination in about three minutes.”

My father replied, “There, see? Stop with this nonsense about going to the hospital, Lynora. It’s settled. We’re already here at the graduation.”

“Don’t look so distressed, darling,” Mom said. “You’re ruining your makeup, Lynora. You said yourself Caroline didn’t indicate Simon was hurt badly. Wouldn’t she have mentioned if he were in dire straits?”

Dane snorted, knowing full well Caroline wouldn’t reveal any such thing to me, but he didn’t correct my mother. I heaved an exasperated sigh. I didn’t know what to do. I was stuck.

We eased to a halt at the entrance to our destination, and I noticed the doors of the limousine were still locked. I sporadically checked as quietly as I could every minute or so that passed. My parents were oohing and ahhing at the beautifully laid out campus. Their attention was riveted to the elegant architecture and landscaping. Dane was studiously ignoring me. Nobody noticed my attempts to break free. It was torture to my very soul to be trapped inside a parked car.

I stopped jiggling the handle when my father glanced my way, but his eyes skated to the side, like he could barely look at me. I then noticed my mother dash away a tear from her eyes, despite her falsely cheerful voice, and realized I had offended her—and everyone else, for that matter. I peeked over at Dane. He was as stoic as his brother ever was, but I didn’t let it fool me one bit.

I reached for my cap and gown with a sigh as if to put them back on, give my parents what they wanted, and watched as they subtly relaxed. My mother dried her tears and my father looked my way, and even Dane shifted in his seat to lean a little closer me now. I placed the crimson cap on top of my head. I laid the gown over my lap and leaned toward the door with half a smile, half a surrendering look on my face, thinking I should’ve majored in drama.

Dane nodded to the driver, and the driver nodded back. All I saw was the back of his head and his eyes in the rearview mirror. He made a gesture toward the driver’s-side door, and once he did, I heard the locks as they released with a pop. I pushed my door open and ran as fast as I could, away from them, down the road.

My cap flew backward off my head, caught in a breeze as I ran, and I let it fly away. I weaved in and out through the stalled traffic as fast as my feet could carry me in those God-awful heels I was wearing. I heard a terrifying screech from a car. By the time I turned my head around, all I could see was the chrome grille of a Cadillac Escalade about an inch from tearing me in half.

“Are you crazy?” a man screamed with his head out the window, swinging his fist in the air. A woman sitting next to him—his wife, I presumed—looked wide-eyed with shock, her mouth gaping open. I laughed because she looked like the New Zealand tribal mask we have on our living room wall in our home back in Fresno.

The question he asked me lingered in the air like a fine men’s cologne, and it worried at my thoughts as my knees pumped up and down and my feet carried me further away. Was I crazy? Should I consider myself insane for ditching my graduation and rushing to Simon’s aid like I was? I ran past the university’s main road, then a large stretch of grass, and finally out of the traffic onto the curb.

I paused, bending forward with hands resting on my knees, trying to catch my breath. What should I do now? The hospital wasn’t far, but it was far enough not to walk, and in these heels I’d be on my knees before I made it. Too bad I wasn’t in the city, I thought. Palo Alto wasn’t a place where a person could hail a cab. In the time it would take to call one and wait for it to get to me through the traffic, I’d be better off attending graduation and waiting to go to the hospital afterward. Standing in place catching my breath, I put my hands behind my head and inhaled a lungful of air. I would have to find a way.

I started walking along the sidewalk back toward downtown, where the hospital was located. After a while, I paused and took off my ruined shoes. They were the worse for wear, cracked near the toe and wobbly at the heel. I held them in my hands and continued my trek. With each block, I looked over my shoulder to see if I could spot the limousine, because if they somehow had managed to get through the thick maze of cars, they’d be searching, and I didn’t want them to find me. I quickened my steps, thinking the faster I walked, the better; the sooner I reached the hospital, the sooner I would know how Simon was doing.

“Woo-hoo! The party is back there, gorgeous. You’re walking the wrong way!” Two graduates still in caps and gowns trailed me in white Ford. Ruckus laughter spilled from the cab of the truck. They screamed catcalls at me through the open windows, arms extended with cups in their hands. I did my best to ignore them, hoping they hadn’t already started drinking. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with these drunken fools in the least.

I expected the truck to speed away after them not getting any attention from me, but they pulled to the side of the road, keeping pace. “So, where are you going, gorgeous? Want a ride?” I kept my gaze focused forward and didn’t respond. Two freshly graduated idiots, a shining example of how to waste their parents’ hard-earned tuition money, I thought in disgust. “C’mon, don’t be like that! Smile, girl! We can take you anywhere you need to go. Just let us know where you’re heading.”

“Your hair looks nice today,” said the driver.

“Why don’t you two leave me alone?” I challenged.

“Hey, honey, your feet have gotta be killing you. This truck has two more seats behind us here. It’s more than enough room to accommodate that sexy ass of yours.”

“Ain’t it, though!” agreed the driver, honking his horn at me.

Enough was enough. I stopped walking and mustered what I had left to tell the both of them off. “You know what? If you don’t leave me alone, I’m going to get this phone right here in my hand and call the police and report you for harassment. And I sure as fuck hope you haven’t been drinking, ’cause I’ve already taken a pic of your license plate.” It was a lie, but it sounded nice and intimidating. “So, why don’t you just drive along and find another girl who’ll fall a victim to your lame charms. I’m sure she won’t be able to resist.” Right then I spotted something around the corner about a two blocks behind the truck—the black limousine with my parents and Dane riding in it!

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I stamped my battered feet and winced in pain.

“All right, suit yourself, but I bet you’re going to regret it.” The boys were set to pull off before I turned my head to face them.

“You know what?” I gave them a bright, sunny smile. “Now that I think about it…”

I watched as the hospital doors slid open. Before I walked in, I turned back and waved goodbye to the boys behind me, the nice fellas in the pickup truck. Once I laid down the law, they chilled, and it turned out they were actually decent guys. They offered to take me to wherever I wanted to go, which was a relief, because once I’d hopped in the truck, I’d also realized they could very well be dangerous predators. “Ha!” I let out a triumphant laugh. I turned back to the open hospital doors and strutted inside. Who would’ve figured they were men of their word? Shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, I thought. They had turned out to be sober, happy graduates, overzealous with their “game,” as they called it, trying to impress me. On the drive over, I had schooled them on some of the finer points of trying to get a woman’s attention—namely, not looking and talking like a couple of douchebags.