Down and Out in Bugtussle (16 page)

“Oh, these are poppin’,” she says when she looks at the menus. “This is exactly what I wanted! You are so talented.” She flips the
last sheet over and smiles when she sees the drawing of her dad’s marina at Frog Bayou. “Oh wow,” she says quietly. “This is too perfect.” She looks up at me. “Thank you, Ace.”

“Thanks for asking me,” I say. “I enjoyed it.” I nod toward the menus, which she’s carefully placing in a bright yellow folder. “Those and the mural.”

“About that,” she says in a tone that makes me nervous. “Almost everyone who walks in here has either comments or questions.”

“Really?” I say, feeling anxious. “So, like, good comments and questions or—”

“Of course, good comments and questions!” She looks at me like I’m crazy. “That mural is turning out to be quite the conversation piece, and I think you need to have some business cards made up for me to keep at the register when I open this place up next month.”

“You think?” I ask, relieved and a tad bit excited.

“Yes, I think!” she says. “The guy who came in to do my trim work absolutely loved it and asked if you painted for hire. He said that people are always asking him if he knows someone who does specialty painting. And before he came in, one of the guys putting down the flooring asked if he could have your number. He’s building a new house and his wife is driving him crazy because she wants him to glaze the walls. He said he didn’t know anything about glazing walls and didn’t want to mess with it. He asked if I thought you’d be interested.” She looks at me. “Are you?”

I sit for a moment and fantasize about spending my days painting murals and glazing walls instead of explaining to ill-mannered high school students that I have no idea where their regular teacher is and do not know why he or she had to take the day off. “Of
course,” I tell her. “I could do it after school.”
Remember, the grass is not always greener,
I think.

“You might rustle up enough business to do it full-time.”

“I’ve given up dreaming the impossible dream,” I tell her.

“This has nothing to do with dreaming impossible dreams,” she says. “It has to do with your purpose in life.” She holds up the menus. “Clearly, God has given you a gift.”

“I do not doubt that at all and I very much appreciate it, but having a gift doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to try to squeeze a dollar out of it. I tried that, remember?”

“Your gift is an arrow that points you in a certain direction.”

“Jalena, I don’t think—”

“Let me ask you a question,” she says. “Do you think Ethan Allen and I were meant to be together?”

“Of course,” I say. “A blind person can see that.”

“Now think about how many losers I dated before I met him.”

I consider that for a second. “Point taken,” I tell her.

*   *   *

Thursday, I decide to go ahead and pick up everything I need for Dax’s going away party, and since Lilly loves going to Walmart, I invite her to come along. She perks up a little on the ride over, but not much.

We chat about this and that while I load the shopping cart up with chips, dips, and sweet stuff. She tells me Dax is really fond of spinach dip, so I pick up the ingredients for that along with a loaf of Hawaiian bread. We’re standing by the hot dogs, discussing how many packs to buy, when a deep voice says, “Hello, ladies.” We turn to see Sheriff J. J. Jackson, in uniform. I point at Lilly.

“Sheriff, this lady is trying to steal some wieners, but I was adamantly advising against such behavior.” J.J. looks at me without even a hint of a smile. Lilly is equally stone-faced. “C’mon.” I play punch her in the arm. “If you confess, he might go easy on you.” Lilly is not in a joking mood. The sheriff pats Lilly on the shoulder and looks at me like I’ve lost all of my marbles.

“We’re gonna miss Dorsett, Lilly. But don’t worry, he’ll be back before you know it.”

Lilly just stares at the sheriff and nods. Then I remember Chloe’s predicament.

“So,” I say, smiling up at the handsome sheriff, “how long have you and Chloe been dating now?”

“Yeah,” Lilly says. “Has it been a year already?”

The sheriff looks nervous. “Not sure, why? Do we have an anniversary coming up?” He glances around. “Y’all better tell me if I do.”

“I don’t think it’s been quite a year yet,” I say, and he looks majorly relieved.

“I think it’s been about ten months,” Lilly says.

“That Chloe is a real catch if you ask me,” I say.

“Yeah,” J.J. says, “she’s a good one, no doubt about it.”

“And so pretty,” Lilly adds.

“That, too,” he says, looking at us with suspicious eyes.

“And so nice,” I say.

“She is a keeper,” Lilly says, and I make a mental note to brag on her later for coming up with that one.

“Definitely a keeper,” I say. “One to keep around for a while.”

The sheriff looks from me to Lilly, then back at me.

“Have you girls been drinking?”

“No!” I say. “We just left school thirty minutes ago. I mean, I
could use a drink and I’ll probably have one later, but not now. No. I quit drinking and driving years ago.”

“Years ago,” Lilly echoes.

“Okay,” he says, looking at us like we’re a couple of bozos. “Guess we’ll see y’all Saturday night, then.” He nods toward the hot dogs. “Don’t spend too much time here. I think it’s messing with your heads.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Yes, thank you,” Lilly says as he turns to go.

“Epic fail,” I whisper, and turn back to the wieners.

F
riday, even the loudest, most idiotic little asshole can’t put a bend in my stride, but that certainly doesn’t stop each and every one of them from trying. It should be against the law for a teacher to take off from school on Friday because substitute hell is at its very hottest at the end of the week. What these maniacs fail to realize is that I’m just as ready for the week to be over as they are, if not more so.

During third period, I look out at twenty-five students, a good solid fifteen of whom are acting like they just snorted a line of crack cocaine. I think for a moment about how surprised they would be if they managed to push me over the edge. I wouldn’t tuck tail and run—which is what I think they’re going for—I would go stark-raving nuts and give them an earful of the cold hard truth. And the truth would hurt. At least it would hurt their feelings. And it would most certainly set me free from a substantial amount of annoying
racket. But I can’t do that because there’re always a few, usually the ones with the absolute worst behavior, who would run home to Mommy and Daddy—who would never dream of hurting little precious’s feelings—and whine about the mean ol’ substitute who grew weary of their intolerable brattiness and told them something they didn’t want to hear. Then Mommy would call Mr. Byer and cuss him like a dog and I’d get called before the board and fired. Then Chloe would run over me with her office chair and it would be one big huge mess, all because I snapped and screamed something like,
Shut the fuck up!
to a rowdy bunch of devotees to chaos. Of course, I would never say anything like that in a classroom, but I certainly enjoy entertaining that fantasy.

At lunchtime, I sit down with Stacey Dewberry in the noisy cafeteria where we finalize our plans for the night. She’s acting peculiar—even more so than usual—and I get the distinct feeling that she’s hiding something. I hope it’s not that she’s back with Joe Red and he’ll be joining us at the concert tonight.

After lunch, I tough out two more hours in maniac central and just when I’m certain the day couldn’t get worse, Chloe comes over the intercom and summons me to her office during afternoon break. Lilly is already there when I walk in and as soon as I see her, I know we’re in trouble. Sure enough, Chloe hammers us about what we said to J.J. in the hot dog aisle of Walmart yesterday. We each make a legitimate effort to change the subject, but Chloe is determined to have this conversation.

“You told him I was a keeper?” she says to Lilly. “How could you do that?”

“I thought it was good,” Lilly says, looking at me. “You said it was good.”

“I thought it was genius,” I say.

“Do not say another word to him about me, got it?” she says, and her face is flush red.

“Okay, calm down, Chloe,” I tell her. “You’re going to have a heart attack.” I look at Lilly. “I’m sorry. We’re sorry.”

“We’re very sorry,” Lilly chimes in. “Won’t happen again. We promise.”

She glares at us until the bell rings.

“Have a nice rest of the day,” I say. Her response is a cold stare.

“Shit,” Lilly whispers after we walk out the door. “This is going to be a long nine months.”

“Seven,” I remind her. “Because she’s already—” I stop talking because we meet Mr. Byer in the hallway.

“Hello, hello, hello, ladies,” he says. “How are we today? Glad it’s Friday, I presume? I know I am.” He does that funny little giggle of his and flashes that shy smile.

“Yes, sir,” I say. “So happy it’s Friday!”

“Well, I hope you both enjoy your weekend to the fullest,” he says.

“He is so nice,” I say, and turn to Lilly, who has stopped dead in her tracks.

“When this weekend is over, he’ll be gone, Ace. When this weekend is over, Dax will be—”

“Lilly, you can’t think about that right now,” I tell her. “Just put it out of your mind. You only have two more classes and then you can go home and see him.”

“I can’t,” she says, and her eyes fill up with tears. “I can’t stay here. I’ve got to go. It’s our last weekend together. Oh God! What am I going to do when he leaves?”

“Oh my goodness.” I hurry back to Chloe’s office and tell her that Lilly’s having a breakdown in the hallway. “I don’t know if that medicine she’s taking is helping or hurting,” I tell her. “She’s a mess.”

“I’ve thought the same thing,” she says, and I’m relieved to hear kindness in her voice.

Chloe follows me to where Lilly is slumped in one of the chairs just outside the narrow office hallway. Chloe stops and knocks on Mrs. Marshall’s door.

“Mrs. Marshall, are you in?” she calls.

“Yes, Mrs. Stacks. What can I do for you?” Mrs. Marshall steps out into the hallway, sees Lilly, and says, “Oh no! Is she okay?”

“She’s just upset and needs to go home,” Chloe says to Mrs. Marshall. “Would you mind finding someone to cover her last two classes?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Marshall says. She steps back into her office.

“Lilly,” I say, “c’mon, get up. Let’s get you out of here.”

“Remind me what class you’re in today,” Chloe says to me.

“Mr. Bridgeton,” I say as the tardy bell rings.

“Walk Lilly out to her car and I’ll go down and stay in his classroom until you get back.”

“Is everything okay out here?” Mr. Byer says, sticking his head out of his office. He sees Lilly and his eyebrows crunch up with concern.

“Everything is fine, Mr. Byer,” Chloe says. “Lilly isn’t feeling well, so she’s going to leave early.”

“Is there anything I can do?” he asks. “Do I need to run down and cover her class?” I can’t help but think about how lucky this school is to have such a genuinely nice person in charge of things.

“Mrs. Marshall is taking care of it,” Chloe says, “but thank you so much.”

I look at Lilly and she looks downright pitiful.

“How embarrassing,” she says, standing up and smoothing her skirt. “I’m so sorry for making a scene, Chloe.” She wipes her cheeks.

“Not a problem, Lilly. Just go sit in my office while Ace runs down to get your purse. I have to get to Mr. Bridgeton’s classroom.”

“Thank you.”

“C’mon,” I say, and walk with her to Chloe’s office where she sits down and puts her hands over her face. “You’ll be fine, Lilly. Just sit tight and I’ll be right back.” She doesn’t say anything, so I take off to D Hall.

I hear a major ruckus going on in Lilly’s classroom before I even knock on the door. When I walk in, I see that Mrs. Marshall has recruited none other than Cameron Becker to cover Lilly’s class this period. Great.

“Where’s Ms. Lane?” one student yells above the roar. “I saw her right before break.”

“Ms. Lane isn’t feeling well,” I say.

“I’m not feeling well, either, so can I leave, too?” a loudmouth in the back of the class hollers. The students roar with laughter and start talking even louder.

“Be quiet, please,” Ms. Becker says. “Everyone needs to take a seat.”

The students ignore her. I walk over to the cabinet where Lilly keeps her stuff, open the door, and reach in to get her purse. I turn around and look at Cameron Becker, who is failing miserably to get control of the situation.

“Quiet, students, please,” she says again. “Stop talking! Right now!” She claps her hands, but no one pays her any attention. The expression on Cameron’s face brings back terrible memories from my first year teaching, but then I remember what a hussy she’s been each and every time we’ve spoken. I look at the door and tell myself to walk out. Leave her to it. But I don’t because I can’t. I stand by the cabinet, listening as the noise level rises to a dull roar. I know what I should do, but I don’t want to do it. I look at Cameron Becker and, despite my best effort to be a hard-ass, I feel sorry for the girl. She asks them to sit down and stop talking for a third time. When not a single student bothers to acknowledge her, I unleash the fury that only five years of teaching, a wrecked dream, and a few weeks of permanent substitute teaching can put in a woman.