Relative Danger Read online

  I put out my hand. “I’m Cealie Gunther.”

  Gingerly, she accepted my handshake. “I’m Cynthia Petre, a secretary.” She wore slicked-back hair, her only makeup coral lipstick that surrounded teeth bound in shiny braces. Her crimson blouse clashed with her orange skirt and reminded me of Thanksgiving dinners. “May I help you?”

  “Hi, Miss Petre. I’m interested in doing some substitute teaching,” I said, aware that my voice gave away my lack of conviction. I wanted to teach the kids I’d seen in the hall about as much as I wanted to smash my fingers with a hammer.

  Her face brightened. “You are?”

  I forced a nod. “Uh-huh.”

  An ill-sounding horn blasted, and I jumped. From the hall, voices lifted even higher than before. A large well-dressed woman walked out of a room near the secretary, who told her, “Oh, Mrs. Little, come here. I want you to meet this lady.”

  “I’m in a rush.” Through slender frameless eyeglasses, Mrs. Little gave me a once-over that said my face didn’t register. She wore a peach-colored tailored suit. Gold hoop earrings that I could have swung on shook beneath her highlighted hair.

  “This lady wants to sub,” Cynthia Petre said.

  Mrs. Little’s arm extended over the counter, her hand pumping mine. “You do?” A massive smile replaced her pinched expression.

  I cringed inwardly. “I went to the school board, and they’re running a check on me to make sure I’m not an escaped criminal.” I gave her my best grandmotherly smile. “I have a degree in education from Northwestern and did some postgraduate work while I taught near Evanston. It was a small private school with top-notch students. Of course that was long ago, and I don’t even know if it still exists. I only taught a little while because I got married and moved, and my husband and I decided to go into business.” I noticed her eyes had glossed over. Behind her, everyone looked so busy.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I wanted to come over and introduce myself and show this letter from the school board that says I’m otherwise qualified. So if you ever have a need, I’m available.”

  “Ever have a need?” Mrs. Little’s face skewered as though I’d asked the dumbest question. She barely glanced at my letter. “I always have a need, and teachers have been calling in sick like crazy. We have to hire a sub for every absent teacher, and lately that’s been as easy as plucking your eyebrows with pliers.”

  The image made the skin above my eyes ache.

  “I’m Anne Little, one of the vice-principals,” she said. “But lately it seems my main job is taking care of hiring subs.”

  “Well, if you need me, especially within the next week or so….”

  She tightened a viselike grip on my hand. “I need you now.”

  “Now?” The word squeezed up my throat.

  “Not this minute, but tomorrow. Can you come?”

  I reminded her about the board running a background check on me.

  “The larger districts are pickier about waiting for those results to come in, but I’m desperate, and you’ve taught before.” She skimmed my high-cut dress and the wrinkles my liquid makeup failed to hide. “I don’t think you killed anyone. Other than that, we’ll take you.”

  Suppose I had killed someone, I wanted to suggest. Or maybe before tomorrow, I could smash my fingers. No such luck. Hammers were another of the many things I had shed myself of. “Tomorrow,” I said, no conviction in my tone.

  “Yes.” The thin scar in the center of her chin almost hit her top button with her nod. “We’re going to have teachers out for meetings, and there’s this virus going around.”

  Maybe I could quickly catch it. “So tomorrow,” I said, thinking maybe she would amend that decision.

  “Great!” Anne Little rushed off. She stopped when a man and a woman wearing mournful expressions walked in from a rear hall. “Tom, Hannah, how was the funeral?”

  I paused, pretending to dig for keys from my purse.

  “Horrible. I felt so sorry his family.” My peripheral vision located the speaker, Hannah. She was about five foot seven and probably nearing fifty, nicely built with high breasts jutting beneath a cerise suit. She shook her head, making her bobbed hair sway.

  “He was a nice person,” Anne Little said. “What a shame.”

  “Yeah, a pity.” Tom, a rail-thin man pulling off his brown suit jacket, made the comment. He peeled off his tie and popped open the top button of his shirt. The area below his neck looked concave.

  “It seemed strange not having you around here,” Anne Little told him, “even if it was just for a couple of hours. You’re always the first person to check in.”

  I lifted my key as though I’d just found it. Cynthia Petre spoke in a loud whisper. “Hannah, you started your period.” Hannah straightened from her bent position above an open drawer and twisted to see a dark spot near her right hip. “That happened to me last month,” Petre said, twisting her head to check her own rear.

  The kids seated behind me snickered. I swerved my eyes aside and headed for the door. I had been through that embarrassment before, way before.

  “Let’s go to my office,” Tom said to the girls seated behind me.

  “Damn Tom Reynolds,” one of them muttered before they rose and followed him.

  The office held too much unpleasant commotion for me. The hall outside it appeared friendlier. Brick walls the same chilly oyster gray as the school’s exterior weren’t intimidating. The floor must have been waxed at one time, for patches of its glitter ran the length of the hall’s outer area. The walls were long and flush. Didn’t they make lockers anymore?

  I strolled outside to my car thinking maybe teaching wouldn’t be so bad. I’d get to know some students and possibly help them. I knew lots of things. I’d taught, been a parent, and survived having teens around. Really, how bad could one day here be?

  In the parking lot, I needed to get my bearings. Way out past the jumble of student cars, I’d find my Lexus. Some vehicles had vacated parking spaces. Maybe students like the thug who shoved me had gotten off early. They could be seniors, taking half-day courses and then leaving for jobs or college courses. Probably I’d misjudged them.

  That concept came to me right before I spotted the Lexus. Someone had sliced the polished champagne finish across the trunk.

  I cursed, not caring if any teens were around to hear. One of them had keyed my car. I took deep breaths and pressed the remote to unlock doors. Going to open mine, I found a dent the size of a huge shoe along its bottom.

  Creative curses left my mouth. I threw myself into the Lexus, cranked the motor, and hightailed it from students’ vehicles as though their very existence could contaminate mine. For tomorrow, I’d have to prepare. Maybe I could purchase a billy club.

  No, I didn’t want my purse to get that heavy.

  I wanted to give up, to stay the hell away from that school and let others take care of their problems, but giving up was not an option. Instead, I’d come up with another way to meet life—including those vicious teens—in the morning.

  Chapter 4

  The Lexus needed to go to a repair shop, but I couldn’t take it to Roger’s place. He didn’t need extra worries about me going to Kat’s school. And since Gil had suggested that I not get involved, I didn’t plan to tell him I’d gone to Sidmore High.

  I uttered more ugly words about teenagers. Paying for damages to my car wasn’t the problem. My problem was what I’d do without wheels for the time it would take for repairs.

  Driving through a business section, I read Johnny’s Auto Repairs on the front of a metal building with no apparent rust spots. The man working outside appeared decent. Straight black hair, clean face. His jumpsuit told me he was Johnny. “Sure, I can fix this,” he said. “The dent and stripped paint will be invisible when I finish. I’ll have her ready by Sunday. We’ll be open all day.”

  I had spied a car dealership two blocks away and walked back there. A spindly salesman scooted over to me, his firm handshake saying I was t
he most important person in his life. “Do you have any rentals?” I asked.

  “Just about anything you could want. And if you like what you try, you could own it. What were you looking for?” He guided me around showcase autos, some vintage, and everything in-between. What would teenagers not go for? I wanted to ask but decided not to. The newness of the Lexus had probably attracted them. I lolled through the lot, watching the sales guy’s fake smile. He slowed near the new cars that would earn him a nice commission.

  “That one,” I said, turning.

  “That one?” His smile inverted. “Are you sure?”

  “That one’s me.”

  “I’ll have to try and find the keys. Are you sure you want that one?”

  He watched my foot tap and eventually slunk toward the sales building.

  “Perfect,” I complimented myself while I headed toward the condo. The vehicle I drove had a silver metal interior and its steering wheel on the right-hand side. It wasn’t equipped with air conditioning, but an oscillating fan perched on its dash. This boxy baby wouldn’t attract teens’ keys or feet. Large side mirrors stuck out everywhere, and the huge empty space in back would hold lots of items Kat and I could purchase. The gears had been stripped but repaired, the salesman told me before I left. And the owner had purposely repainted it this color. The Lexus would be repaired soon, and I’d be subbing at school just one day. I needed a day at Sidmore High to get everything straightened out with Kat. Then the Lexus would give the exact feel I wanted for attending her graduation.

  “You’re driving a what?” Kat asked once I returned to the condo and phoned her.

  I grinned. “A mail truck.”

  “One of those little white trucks that the mail carriers use?”

  “Yes, but this one’s green. Avocado.”

  She gave the neatest chuckle I’d heard from her in some time, which confirmed my selection of vehicles.

  “You have to see it,” I said. “I’ll take you for a ride.” I clunked through the kitchen with the phone, glancing again at the answering machine, wishing I’d missed something. Gil knew where I was staying. He could have found me. Maybe I hadn’t looked hard enough. Maybe the red light blinked when my eye did, and I’d missed it.

  I hadn’t. I shrugged off disappointment and thrust a dish into the microwave.

  “What are you doing?” Kat asked.

  I made my moves quieter. “Fixing dinner.”

  “So early? What’re you having?”

  The microwave screamed, and I yanked out my meal. “A corn dog. Want one?”

  “No thanks. I have fettuccini if you’d like some.”

  Moisture flooded the floor of my mouth. But Roger would stare at my hair. Even if he didn’t speak, I’d know what he was thinking. Natural burnt sienna, right. After my experiences at school, I didn’t need more rejection. And I was in no mood to attempt to make him cheerful. “Next time. Maybe save me a little?”

  “I sure will.”

  I had briefly entertained thoughts of dinner at Gil’s place tonight. I’d eat his great food. Sit beside him, smell his singular smell, feel his hand on mine and tell him, “I’m too old for this struggling with teenage students.” No, I thought. I wasn’t too old for anything. Whenever anyone asked my age, I said I had a son in his thirties, but I’d given birth when I was four. Okay, ten. Actually, I had decided that I would be whatever age I felt, and I had been feeling just fine.

  My real problem today was the way one of those big punks had looked at me. The Lexus. Apparent riot. And I was going back there? The trouble wasn’t that I was too old. I just normally used better judgment. But I had decided. I was returning. No matter how big those teenagers were, or how rude, I’d be at Sidmore High in the morning. And I hoped neither I nor anyone else would get hurt.

  “So what did you do today without going to school?” I asked Kat cheerily. “Did you cook and clean house for your dad? Your place never has time to get dirty, you know. The way you keep everything scrubbed, you could serve your meals right off the floor.”

  “I went to the funeral.”

  “Oh.” I had no other stupid response to give. When Kat didn’t say more, I asked, “Did other people from school attend the service?”

  “I saw three or four students. The boy I broke up with, John Winston, was there. Couple of administrators. A custodian.” A hitch altered Kat’s tone.

  I didn’t ask whether her Spanish teacher had gone. But dating a boy at school would be great for her. “Is there a chance you and John might make up?”

  “No. He wants to get serious. I don’t.”

  I understood. “Baby, I really need you to do something for me.”

  “Sure. What?”

  I glanced at my wilted corn dog. “Come to school tomorrow.”

  “Come…”

  “I think I got myself in real trouble. Nothing new, but this time it’s something you could help with.”

  “What do you mean, come to school?”

  I hadn’t planned to tell her I’d gone there. “I’m going to be a substitute teacher, and I need you around. I need support, Kat.”

  Absolute quiet came from her end of the line.

  “You, teaching? Why, Gram?”

  “I wanted something to do.” Get you back to classes. Taking exams. Crossing a stage.

  “You don’t need the money, do you?” She sounded concerned.

  “Oh no. The problem is…I really needed things to do with my time.” I pinched my right palm. Told God I was only playing.

  Extended silence said Kat didn’t believe me. God probably didn’t either.

  “You always find tons of things to do, Gram. Fun things.”

  Okay, so I’d out and out lie. I set my corndog down and crossed my fingers. I’d tell her better later. “I wanted to be around people. Young people.”

  Kat snickered. “Now that, I believe.” Good. She was so gullible. “Knowing you,” she said, “I bet you’ll be running the school by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I might.” Concerns from the day made me famished. I nibbled on the corn dog, pretending it was fettuccini, while Kat made up her mind.

  “But do you know what today’s teens are like?” Her warning came a few hours too late for the Lexus.

  “Not so different from when I was growing up or teaching.” Kat either giggled or choked, and I added, “I know some things changed, but I’ve dealt with teens before.”

  “It’s been a while.”

  I set my food down. “C’mon, kid, support me. I was hired.”

  “Oh, Gram.”

  “Just a day, baby. They really needed subs.” I was getting no response so I pushed harder. “Kat, I went there. It’s a scary place.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Do you know whose place you’ll be taking?”

  “No. But that shouldn’t make a difference, should it?”

  Kat sighed. “Just one day?”

  “That’s all I’m giving the place. A big guy ran into me today. His attitude stunk.”

  “And you think the other kids’ attitudes will be better?”

  “Can’t get much worse.”

  She coughed, and I whined, “Will you come? Be my protection for the day?”

  Her exhale sounded like resignation. “Going there will be hard for me.”

  I wanted to hug Kat and say everything would be peachy. But I couldn’t. I had no idea how keen the experience would be for me, much less for her. Could her beloved adviser be a killer? With my inquisitive self, I’d find out what the trouble was, and I’d serve my major purpose. I’d have Kat returning to classes. “I know it won’t be easy,” I said. “But I’ll be there for you, and you will be near for me.”

  “Supporters of each other.”

  I smiled. “You got it.”

  “See you there around seven,” Kat said, and then she hung up.

  Seven? Was that an hour in the morning?

  “Who wakes up before seven o’clock?” I asked Minnie cactus after I got off the
phone. “Surely kids don’t crawl out of bed, eat breakfast, and get to school fully dressed by that hour. We used to start classes much later.”

  Minnie kept her pink head steady while I finished gobbling my corn dog. I laid out my clothes and dove into bed by 8:30. At 5:32 a.m. my alarm shrilled. I slapped it and drifted back into dream world.

  * * *

  A half hour later I sprang up, stared aghast at the glowing clock face, and scrambled. I showered, holding my head back to keep my hair out of water, since I wouldn’t have time to dry and fix it. Damp hair ends stuck to my neck while I dressed. I folded a slice of bread and ate it, tossed back some orange juice, and dashed out the door.

  The green truck appeared uglier with the sun’s first rays glistening off its side, its putrid hue making the juice sour in my stomach. No one had told the mail truck this was supposed to be an important morning. It kicked and balked. I cranked the key, stomped the foot petal, and called the truck nasty names. Eventually it decided to cooperate. After all, today I was a teacher.

  I reached the school and parked in a different spot. Sliding down from the truck’s seat, I stood a moment and straightened my spine, proud of my new status. Big kids were tumbling out of cars and trucks with tremendous tires. Rap music blared through open windows, the deep boom boom-boom, boom boom-boom from its bass seeming to pound inside my head.

  A sudden urge to dance struck. It always did when I heard the lively strain of “The Mexican Hat Dance” coming from my shoulder bag. I reached inside it and took out my cell phone. Few people had its number. The readout showed the call coming from my Austin office. “Good morning!” I answered.

  “Mrs. Gunther?”

  “Yep, it’s me.” I leaned back against the mail truck.

  “This is Brianna Thompson.”

  “I recognized your voice.”

  My newest hire as manager, the young woman with minuscule thighs and a penchant for details. She was quiet a moment, faked a cough, and then asked, “Shouldn’t a predicate nominative come after a linking verb?”

  “Absolutely.” I watched more vehicles pulling into the lot. Most of their rear bumpers held Sidmore High School parking stickers.