The Book of Lost Friends: A Novel (27 page)

By the time he’s finished, I can’t help it, I’m in tears. Beside me, Sarge clears her throat. She’s got Granny T on one arm and Aunt Dicey on the other, because they insisted on coming out here, and she doesn’t want them to take a tumble.

We move to LaJuna next. “I am Seraphina,” she says. “My daddy was the banker….”

I eventually deduce that she has abandoned her own research project on family roots, to take on a role from Lil’ Ray’s family, now that they are a couple and all.

We’ll have a talk about that later.

I let her finish, and we move along. A few of the life histories are more complete than others, but there’s something magnificent in each one. Even the littlest participants manage to stumble through. Tobias tells, in only a few lines, the story of Willie Tobias, who died along with his siblings so tragically young.

I’m wrung out by the end of the rehearsal, and stand with the volunteers, unable to process my thoughts into words. I’m amazed. I’m elated. I’m proud. I love these kids in a deeper way than ever before. They are incredible.

They’ve also attracted a bit of an audience. Cars have pulled in along the road’s shoulder, where the armchair quarterback dads usually stop to watch middle school football practices. Some of tonight’s observers are undoubtedly parents who’ve come to give kids a ride home. Others, I’m not so sure of. The sleek SUVs and luxury sedans are too upscale for this school, and the people stand in bemused groups, watching, talking, pointing occasionally. The body language looks ominous, and I think I spot the mayor’s wife in her exercise clothes. A police department vehicle drifts around the corner and pulls in. Redd Fontaine swaggers forth, belly first. A few of the bystanders walk over to check in.

“Mmm-hmmm, that’s trouble,” Granny T says. “Meetin’ of the BS—the Busybody Society—going on over there. And mmm-hmm, there goes Mr.
Fon
taine, struttin’ down the way to see, can he find anybody with a bad taillight or a license tag out of date and write some citations? Just there to throw his considerable weight around. That’s all he’s up to.”

A rust-mottled truck at the far end pulls out and rattles away before Officer Fontaine can get there. Some poor student’s ride home just vacated the area.

“Uh-huh,” one of the other New Century ladies murmurs in disgust.

Heat boils under my jacket and spills out my collar. I’m livid. This night is a triumphant one. I refuse to let it be spoiled. I am not putting up with this.

I start across the field, but I’m waylaid by kids asking how I thought things went, and if it was good, and what they should do with their lanterns, and how can they get costume materials if they don’t yet have what they need? With our dress rehearsal having gone well, the ones who had been lackluster are psyched up.

“We do okay?” Lil’ Ray wants to know. “Are we gonna get to have our
Underground
pageant? Because LaJuna and me got the advertising posters all figured out. Our manager at the Cluck says if we write up something for a flyer, he’ll take it over to the Kinko’s and get copies made for us when he goes to Baton Rouge to the restaurant supply. Color paper and everything. We’re okay to do it, right, Miss Pooh? ’Cause I got these threads from my Uncle Hal, and I am lookin’
fine.
” He shakes LaJuna loose and does a slick 360-degree heel spin so I can get the full effect.

His smile fades when LaJuna is the only one who laughs. “Miss Pooh? You still mad at us?”

I’m not mad. I’m focused on the cars and the bystanders. What is going
on
over there?

“We okay?” LaJuna prods, reattaching herself to Lil’ Ray’s arm. She looks cute in the prom dress. It’s narrow in the waist and low-cut. Too low-cut. And she looks
too
cute in it. Teenage pheromones thicken the air like smoke from a spontaneous combustion about to burst forth in full flame. I’ve seen the sort of mischief that goes on under the bleachers at the football stadium. I know where this could be headed.

Don’t assume the worst,
Benny Silva.

“Yes, we’re okay.” But I have a feeling the activity along the road means we might not be. “You guys were incredible. I’m really proud of you…most of you, anyway. And the rest, well, you guys help each other out, and let’s get this thing in shape.”

“Yeah, who’s jammin’ now?” Lil’ Ray says and struts away in his top hat. LaJuna picks up her skirts and trails along behind.

Sarge, passing by with a box of tea light lanterns, leans close to me and whispers, “I don’t like the looks of that.” She motions toward the street, but before I can answer, her attention veers to LaJuna and Lil’ Ray, fading into the night together. “Don’t like the looks of that, either.” Then she cups a hand to her mouth. “LaJuna Rae, where do you think you’re off to with that boy?” She strikes out in hot pursuit.

I watch as the audience fades away, parents leaving with their kids and uninvited bystanders idling down the street in their vehicles one by one. Redd Fontaine hangs around long enough to write some poor parent a ticket. When I try to intervene, he advises me to mind my own business, then asks, “You get permission to have all them kids hanging around here after hours?” He licks the end of his felt-tip pen, then goes back to writing in his ticket book.

“They’re not hanging around. They’re working on a project.”

“School property.” All three of his chins wiggle toward the building. “This field’s for school activities.”

“It’s a class project…for
school.
And, besides, I see kids playing sandlot ball here all the time after hours and on the weekends.”

He stops writing, and both he and the unfortunate driver—one of the grandparents who showed for parent-teacher night—look my way. His eighth-grade granddaughter slinks in the passenger door and melts into the seat while the officer’s attention is diverted.

“You tryin’ to argue with me?” Officer Fontaine shifts his bulk in my direction.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You gettin’ smart with me?”

“Absolutely not.”
Who does this guy think he is?
“Just making sure all my kids get to where they’re supposed to be.”

“Why don’t you make sure you clean up that field?” Fontaine grumbles, then goes back to his work. “And put out them candles before you set a grass fire and burn down the whole place.”

“I think, with all the rain, we’re pretty safe,” I bite out and give the grandparent an apologetic look. I’ve probably just made things worse for him. “But thanks for the warning. We’ll be
extra
careful.”

Sarge is waiting for me when I return to the sidewalk by the school building. LaJuna and Lil’ Ray frown in tandem nearby. “Well?” Sarge asks.

“I’m not sure,” I admit. “Really, I have no idea.”

“Doubt we’ve heard the last of it. Let me know if you need me.” Sarge nabs LaJuna to take her home. That’s one less thing to worry about, at least. Lil’ Ray wanders off into the night in his top hat, solo.

At home the house is too quiet. The windows seem dark and eerie for the first time ever. As I walk up to the porch, I reach through the oleander and touch the saint’s head, give it an extra rub for luck. “You’d better go to work, pal,” I tell him.

The phone is sounding off when I come in the door. It stops on the fourth ring, right as I grab the receiver from the cradle.

“Hello?” I say. No one’s there.

I dial Nathan’s number before I can rethink it. Maybe that was him. I hope that was him. But he doesn’t answer. I blurt out an abbreviated version of the evening’s story, the thrill of victory, the agony of Redd Fontaine, then I finish with, “Well…anyway…I was hoping to catch you. I just…really wanted to talk.”

Wandering through the house, I turn on all the lights, then stand on the back porch, watching fireflies and listening as a pair of whip-poor-wills call to one another across the distance.

Headlight beams strafe the backyard. I lean over in time to see the city police car circle the cemetery, then pull back onto the highway. An uneasy, off-centered feeling simmers inside me, as if I’m coming down with something but it just hasn’t hit yet. I’m wondering how bad it will get before it’s over.

Resting my head against a dry, crackled porch post that’s seen better days, I look at the orchard and the star-spattered sky blanketing the trees. I ponder how we can put a man on the moon, fly shuttles back and forth to outer space, send probes to Mars, and yet we can’t traverse the boundaries in the human heart, fix what’s wrong.

How can things still be this way?

That’s the reason for
Tales from the Underground,
I tell myself. Stories change people. History, real history, helps people understand each other, see each other from the inside out.

I spend the remainder of the weekend watching an increasing number of cemetery visits, not just by the police. Apparently, ordinary citizens feel the need to stop by and make sure the local youth, or I, have not disturbed the place. Redd Fontaine wanders through in his cruiser from time to time as well. And more hang-up calls ring my phone, until finally I quit answering and start letting the machine get it. At bedtime I turn off the ringer, but I lie awake on the sofa, watching for light to skim through the blinds, and tracking the fact that the calls and Fontaine’s graveyard drive-bys never happen at the same time. Surely a grown man, a police officer, couldn’t be that juvenile.

By Sunday afternoon, my nerves are shot, and I’m pretty sure that if my brain drums up one more gloomy scenario, I’m going to walk out into the rice field and throw myself to the alligator. Even though I’ve told myself I won’t and shouldn’t, I pick up the phone to call Nathan’s number once more. Then I put it back down.

I think about going over to Sarge’s house to talk to her and Aunt Dicey, and maybe Granny T as well, but I don’t want to alarm anyone. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe the cop is just trying to make a point because I picked a fight with him. Maybe the uptick in graveyard visits this weekend is mere coincidence, or maybe the kids’ interest has sparked others’ curiosity.

In desperation, I wander the grounds at Goswood Grove, searching for unicorns and rainbows…and, perhaps, Nathan, whom I do not find, of course. I watch for LaJuna, as well. She doesn’t show up. She is probably focused on her new romantic relationship. Hopefully she and Lil’ Ray are off somewhere rehearsing their performance for the
Underground
pageant.

Hopefully, there will
be
an
Underground
pageant.

There will be,
I tell myself.
There will. We’re doing this. Positive thoughts.

Unfortunately, despite all my efforts at staying upbeat, Monday is a unicorn killer. By ten
A.M.
, I’m in the principal’s office. The summons showed up in my second-hour class, and so now this is how I get to spend my conference period, receiving a grilling about my activities with the kids and a dressing-down from Principal Pevoto, with the aid and supervision of two school board members. They’re positioned in the corner of the office like storm troopers on a raid. One of them is the blonde from the next booth at the Cluck and Oink. Nathan’s aunt-in-law, the second or third trophy wife of Manford Gossett.

She doesn’t even have a kid in this school. Hers are—no surprise—enrolled out at the lake.

The only thing more annoying than her condescending demeanor is her high-pitched voice. “What in the
world
such a thing has to do with the district-approved curriculum, which the district pays
good
money to have developed by an experienced curriculum specialist, I can’t even begin to see.” Her southern accent makes the words sound tactful and sugary sweet, but they’re not. “Our prescribed curriculum is something for which an
inexperienced
first-year teacher, like yourself, should be grateful. You would do well to follow it to the letter.”

I’m also realizing why she looked vaguely familiar to me in the Cluck and Oink. She was the one who passed right by me on the first day of school, when the pipe truck took the front bumper off my Bug. She looked straight at me, our gazes locked in shock and horror at what had almost happened. You don’t forget a moment like that. And then she drove on like she hadn’t seen a thing. The reason? That was a Gossett Industries truck. At the time, I didn’t know what that meant, but I do now. It means people can come within inches of mowing you over, and nobody sees a thing, nobody says a thing. Nobody dares.

Sitting here now, I’m clutching the seat of a poorly padded office chair, so hard my fingernails are bending backward. I want to jump up and say,
Your truck almost ran me down in the street and nearly hit a six-year-old kid, and it didn’t stop, and you didn’t stop. Now, all of a sudden, you care about this school? These kids?

I can’t even get the classroom materials I need. I have to schlep cookies to school, so my kids won’t sit there hungry while they’re trying to learn.

But you just keep wagging your pricey manicure and that horse-choking diamond bracelet at me. That helps make it all seem so much more right.
I grit my teeth against the words. They’re right there behind the barricade. Right, right, right…

There.

Principal Pevoto knows it. He looks at me, shakes his head almost imperceptibly. It’s not his fault. He’s trying to save jobs here. Mine and his. “Miss Silva is inexperienced,” he offers in the sort of soothing tone a nanny would use to placate a spoiled brat. “She didn’t have any way of
really
understanding the sort of approvals that might be needed before taking on a project of this…” He glances apologetically at me. He’s on my side…except that he can’t be. He’s not allowed. “Scale. In her defense, she did mention it to me. I should have asked further questions.”

I cling to the chair, but it’s about to become an ejection seat. I can’t take anymore. I can’t.

What do you care, lady? Your kids are too good for this school.

In my mind, I’m standing in the middle of the office, screaming those words with righteous indignation.
Most
of the board members don’t have kids here. They’re business owners, lawyers, doctors in town. They serve on the board for prestige and for control. They want to regulate things like the district’s dividing lines and requests for property tax hikes and bond issues and student transfers to the district’s flagship school on the lake—things that might cost them money, because they own property and most of the businesses here.