I poured myself a glass of milk. I’d barely slept that night, my mind going around and around the information I’d learned at dinner. I’d finally given up fighting my insomnia and had been awake for several hours before it was time to leave. I’d spent most of the morning organizing the Polaroid photos Monty kept hidden away in drawers. I’d even discovered a few boxes in the basement with way older photos, not taken with an instant - neat little black and whites.
“Where you off to?” Monty let out a loud yawn as he entered the kitchen wearing plaid slippers and a ratty green housecoat. Mona shuffled along after him. Sat in the middle of the room and began to scratch her ear with her back leg.
“School. It’s Monday.” I lifted a glass to my lips and drained the last of my milk. “I thought you might like a warm breakfast.” I nodded toward the frying pan and coffee maker. “There are pancakes and coffee. The pancakes, I can vouch for, Mom taught me to make the very best, but the coffee…” I grimaced. “I wasn’t sure about the grinds to water ratio.”
As he glanced around the kitchen, the sleepy expression slid from Monty’s face.
His eyes darkened as he turned away from the table and the stacks of photos I’d been organizing. He focused on the black sludge in the coffee pot. “Don’t drink the stuff, so it don’t matter.”
I put my glass in the dishwasher. “But I found three coffee makers in the bottom cupboard. And a bunch of coffee tins.”
“I said I don’t drink coffee. Stopped in 96. Doctor’s orders.” He crossed the floor, flicked the gurgling machine off with an angry snap, and dumped the sludge down the drain. “Those tins are near twenty years old, this is probably poison.” Steam fogged the window over the sink. Monty’s voice hardened. “I didn’t ask you to make breakfast for me. I didn’t ask you to go through my old pictures. And I certainly didn’t ask you to stay here. If you want to have a roof over your head, keep out of my stuff.”
“I was just trying to help.” Tears stung the backs of my eyes. I retreated into the hall.
“Oh hell, Charlie.” Monty’s anger faded, the tension around his eyes eased. His gaze sliced to the photos. “Some things are better left tucked away.” He gripped the back of a chair.
“I’ll put it all back where I found it.” I hadn’t been thinking, as usual. Most of the pictures from the basement were of my grandmother. Monty had obviously stored them down there for a reason and then I went and dragged them back upstairs and scattered them over his kitchen.
“No.” Monty picked a photo off the nearest stack, his voice soft. Distracted. “I’ll do it.”
I was melancholy the entire day, but the final class nearly did me in. I sat near the back of the room, desperate for the bell to ring.
Mr. Adams recited the last couplet clutching a leather-bound edition of Shakespeare’s poetry to his chest.
…Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart, to heart's and eyes' delight.
His face flushed, his eyes drifted shut.
“Ew,” a girl said behind me. “Did we just see his ‘O’ face?”
The rest of us snickered. His ‘O’ face? Too funny. I stopped snickering however, when I realized my mother would know the answer to that question.
The bell drowned out my pained groan.
“’Till next we meet, fair ladies and gentlemen.” With a bow, Adams dismissed the class. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow!”
My mom and Mr. Adams made the beast with two backs. Out, damn mental image! Out! My dad may have been a two-timing asshole, but Mom had really scraped the barrel with Adams, kind of like I had with Ty. I guess I came by my relationship dysfunction honestly. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so resistant to the idea of Mom dating again if it hadn’t happened at the same time as rehab.
Or if he wasn’t my freaking teacher.
“Assigned reading,” Adams reminded as kids filed into the hall.
I’d almost made it to the door when he asked a few of us to collect the textbooks strewn around the room. I’d begun to think I was below his radar. Wrong. Emily Hussy, the only other girl in school who could possibly hate her name more than I hated mine, joined me in the slave labor.
The thick covers dug lines into my arms as I hoisted a tower of books to the ledge where a wall of windows offered a stellar view of the parking lot. I sorted the texts, stacking them in manageable piles, while scanning the lot for my ride.
Students and teachers slid over frozen puddles to get to their wheels or pushed through the heavy snow to join those already huddled together for warmth at the bus lanes. I counted thirty-eight trucks and twenty-six SUVs before I spotted Roach brushing off the disco era 1971 Impala her dad had salvaged from a car auction last week. Roach hopped in and black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe as she revved the engine.
“She just needs some love,” Roach had said the first time I saw the car, her hands stroking the hood, not feeling the weathered surface. “Dad says he’ll help me clean her up this summer, but for now she’s functional. Just image what she’ll be like after her makeover.”
Yeah. Just imagine.
I considered walking, but it was Siberian-cold out there and even a ride home in a head-turning, retro-flashback-mobile was still a ride home.
“Rachel is one of my best students…”
Adams spoke at my side, making me jump. “She’s a smart girl.” He frowned at the Impala’s skyward drifting smoke. “You’d think she cared more for the environment.”
I whipped around and a book slid from my grip.
Adams caught it before it fell to the floor.
“Damn,” I said, grabbing the text back from him and chucking it on a pile, “you teachers need bells tied around your necks.”
Adams laughed. “Not a bad idea, especially for Mrs. Fitsmore. Our lovely principal with a bell, a pleasant jingle with every step. Forewarned is forearmed.”
“Charlotte,” Adams said. Teachers I liked knew not to use my full name, apparently teachers who slept with my mother didn’t.
Straining to lift two books at once, Emily shot me a sympathetic glance.
“I’ve been meaning to ask how your mother’s doing.” His face was grave. “She told me a bit of her situation at our last meeting and I just wanted to wish her well.”
I carefully set the books down on the ledge. I had to reassure myself this guy had no idea I knew his interest was a bit more than passing concern, wouldn’t know how icky I felt even talking with him about school stuff. Yet, how could he guess? I don’t think many parents tell their kids about their one-night stands.
“She’s doing fine, loving the art therapy aspect,” I said. From my peripheral vision I noticed Roach cruising away. Damn her for giving up on me just because I was a few minutes late. I wrapped my knuckles on the window.
“That’s fantastic.” Adams brightened. “I saw a few of her charcoal sketches. The ones of your cat were amazing. I keep telling her she should develop her talent.”
I gaped at him. He keeps telling her? Sketches? Of our satanic, dead-for-months ninja kitty? And Mom drew them?
Then I realized two things:
1. Mom had a hidden creative side. Who knew?
2. Mom and Adams clearly had more going on than a one-time I’ll-scratch-your-itch session.
This was not good.
“Well, it’s not horrible,” Roach said after I bolted from Adams’ room, the school, the parking lot, and caught up with her at the corner, her narrow, bald tires spinning on the ice. I’d told her everything while walking beside her car, pushing against the open passenger doorframe, guiding the Impala until we hit salt. I jumped into the passenger seat as we made lift-off.
“It is horrible.” I strapped myself in. “It’s horrid.” I banged my fist on the dashboard. “It’s grossly, horrifically horrid.” I shivered. “Christ, don’t you have heat in this thing? I would have been warmer walking.”
Roach took her foot off the gas. “That’s still an option.”
“Don’t be so testy, I’m the one who just realized her mother may be involved with the town’s least eligible bachelor. He still has his ex-wife’s picture on his desk. I bet Mom doesn’t know that crunchy tidbit.”
“Are you sure you want to burst her bubble? Maybe she needs this.”
“You mean a man? You think my mom’s desperate for companionship or something? What am I, a freeloader?”
“I think that’s a decent assessment. You, me, children, yes, we are freeloaders.”
I rubbed my arms down, trying to generate heat. We passed our block’s mom and pop video store. Suddenly, all I wanted was a hot bath and a few timeless flicks to lull me to sleep. It was Monday. It started off badly and took a nosedive from there. What better way to procrastinate on essay outlines and reading assignments than to waste hours watching my favorite trilogies? Good things always came in threes. At least in movies, they did.