A May-September Wedding (5 page)

Phyl watched Cal play badminton with Tim.
That man
is so graceful.
Phyl pretended to read her
book while watching Cal take off his shirt because he was
overheated. The sight of his still lean torso attracted the gaze of
more than just Phyl.
It's a shame he thinks he's too old
for me.

So the week
ended without anything being spoken between them.

After church
on Sunday, Lydia and Felicity were listening to music in Felicity's
room.

Lydia said,
"Was it my imagination or was your Dad scoping out my Mum this
week?"

Felicity
replied, "Are you sure it wasn't the other way around? Although she
wasn't the only one. That weird woman who ran housekeeping seemed
really interested in Dad."

Lydia frowned.
"Well, your Dad is way hotter than her boyfriend. But you didn't
answer the question."

Felicity
looked at her hands. "Yeah. I think Dad really likes your Mum."

Lydia smiled.
"Mum smiles differently when he's around, too. Maybe she likes him,
too."

Felicity
grinned at her friend. "Wouldn't it be cool if they got married?
Then we'd be like real sisters."

Lydia said,
"That would be awesome. But I don't think it's going to
happen."

Felicity
looked puzzled. "Why not?"

Lydia rolled
her eyes. "Can you imagine what David and Elaine would say?"

Felicity did a
sarcastic impression of David, "Dad, what are you thinking? How
could you marry a woman who could be your daughter? What's going to
happen to my inheritance?"

Lydia giggled.
"David's not that shallow."

"Almost. And
Elaine is still jealous that Phyl got along better with Mom than
she did. Although Elaine has mellowed a lot since she had Emily."
Felicity sighed. "Dad needs a keeper, though."

"Mum would
enjoy doing that. I mean she already does a lot of stuff for you
guys."

"And Dad does
all of your yard work."

Simultaneously
they said, "It would be easier if we all lived in the same house."
Then they both sighed wistfully.

Cal picked up
the phone on the second ring. "Cal Richardson, can I help you?"

"Cal, it's
Phyl. Tim's gotten into a fight at school and I need a favour."

Cal was
curious. "What do you need?"

Phyl paused.
"Well I can give you a choice. You can be home for the girls when
they get off school then take them to youth group at church while I
go speak to the principal or you can go get Tim at school and speak
with the principal for me."

Cal thought
about it for a moment. "It might be better if I spoke with the
principal. She doesn't seem to try her 'niceness is nice' speeches
with me since she found out I work for the military-industrial
complex. And maybe I can have a talk with Tim about what really
happened."

"He's been
pretty closed off since school started. I don't know what his new
class is like but he did have some problems with some of the
anti-Christian kids last year."

"Anti-Christian?"

"There are a
couple of hard line Muslim kids in his year that used to give him a
hard time but they seem to respect him now. It's the two boys whose
parents are atheists are the ones giving him the really hard
time."

"It's not easy
being a Christian kid in public school. I was thinking about
exploring the possibility of putting Felicity in the Christian high
school next year."

Cal could
almost see Phyl nodding as she said, "Let's talk about that
sometime. It might be better for the kids if they could. Neither of
our public high school choices are a good environment for a
committed Christian from what I've heard and a boundary transfer
takes a lot of work."

Cal looked at
his clock. "I guess I have to leave now if I'm going to take care
of this. Make sure you call the school to let them know I'm picking
Tim up."

There was a
paper rustling sound. "Oh. Can you make sure Tim gets supper?"

"No problem,
Phyl. Now, I have to go let the boss know I have a family situation
to take care of. Bye."

"Bye, Cal.
Thanks." Phyl sat back.
Family? I wonder if he realized what he
just said.

Cal hung up
and packed a messenger bag with some reports he needed to read. He
let the director's admin assistant know he was leaving for the day
and went down to his car.

Memories of
rescuing Jeremy from the principal's office came to mind. He had
two firm rules that he got from his mother – first, it was okay to
finish a fight but you never made first contact and second, if you
have to fight try not to damage your opponents eyes but everything
else will heal.

As he was
driving along Bronson, he replayed the conversation. Had he used
the word family? Was that what this was? He lied to himself and
said that of course the Schuylers were family. Their long
friendship entitled Phyl to lean on him like they were family,
right?

Then a strong
image of the previous evening when they were washing up after yet
another meal together came into his mind. Phyl had been wearing a
dark scoop neck summer dress that exposed the delicate muscles that
ran from her shoulders to her neck. She'd put her fine shimmering
blonde hair up and the combination of domesticity and womanly grace
went straight to his heart. It had taken all of his iron will not
to wipe his soapy hands and grab her around the waist to nuzzle her
neck from behind.

He shook his
head to clear the image and return his attention to his driving. Of
course there was no point in fantasizing about Phyl. There is no
way she wants to get involved with an old man.

Tim was
sitting sullenly on a bench outside the principal's office. He
looked both puzzled and relieved when he saw Cal. "Where's
Mum?"

"She's taking
the girls to youth group at church, so I agreed to come see what
the problem is."

A dour middle
aged woman with a helmet of dyed blonde hair asked, "Mr.
Richardson?"

"That's
me."

The principal
looked him over with undisguised interest and said, "You're
Felicity's father." Recognition dawned. "Brenda's husband. I'm
sorry to hear she passed away."

Cal gave a
polite smile and said thanks. "I'm here to pick Tim Schuyler
up."

"Right." She
motioned him into her office and took her seat behind the desk. Cal
took the right hand visitor's chair.

"I'm afraid
that Tim has been acting out since his father died. Do you know if
he's been getting counselling?" She looked professionally
sympathetic.

"Yes. He has
been getting counselling. We all have. But he's also being bullied.
My daughter and the Schuyler children are practising Christians,
like me and Phyllida. Are you sure he's not being persecuted by his
classmates?"

"It's never
appropriate to fight, Mr. Richardson, and persecution is such a
strong word," she said in a condescending tone.

"In my world,
it's always appropriate to defend yourself using the same level of
effort that the instigator uses and when someone is being picked on
because of their faith it's normally called persecution," he said
in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Well, if Tim
holds such intolerant views, then I'm not surprised that he gets
into fights." The principal sniffed.

"Did you ask
who started the fight?"

"Well I did
question the boys involved, but they all said Timothy started the
fight."

"They all..."
Cal fixed a stern look on his face. "Would these boys be in the
habit of running together in a gang or would they be best friends
who are willing to lie to protect each other?"

"I assure you,
Mr. Richardson, I can tell when children are lying to me."

"Was Tim
lying?" Cal looked her in the eye until she dropped her gaze to the
desk.

"Well, none of
the witnesses confirmed his version." She sounded unsure.

"But if you
can tell when children are lying, you should be able to answer my
question. Was Tim lying?"

The principal
fidgeted before saying, in a quiet voice, "No, I don't think
so."

"Then you have
two conflicting stories about what happened. Only one is likely to
be true if you have the whole story. Were there any other children
who saw what happened?"

"No one came
forward," she admitted.

"Then what I
think you have is a classic case of a gang bullying an outsider.
None of the other witnesses want to be singled out either, so they
are going to let Tim take the fall. Now, what are you going to do
about this?" Cal asked, looking intently at the woman across the
desk.

"Well...I
think Tim needs to see the anger management counsellor..." she
started.

"I meant about
the gang of bullies. Surely your teachers and other parents have
spoken to you about them." Cal commented in a reasonable
fashion.

"I don't see
that it's any of your business how we deal with those boys." She
said defiantly.

"When it's my
godson that's being bullied, I think I have every right to ask how
you'll deal with it. I think that Tim has already been punished
enough. He doesn't need you to pile on." Cal stood. "I think I'll
take Tim home, now. Thank you for your time." He turned as he got
to the door. "Please consider doing a better job of actually
supervising the yard next time rather than just spouting platitudes
about respect at the next assembly." Cal left as the principal's
face turned red.

"C'mon sport,
let's go home." Cal quickly led the way out as the principal stood
in her office door debating with herself about saying more.

In the car,
Cal said, "Your Mum is going to want your story. I wouldn't mind
hearing it either, but I'm going to make the assumption that you
threw the first real punch but only after they shoved you around
for a while."

Tim stared at
his shoes. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Then, for
what it's worth, I think you did the right thing. They'll probably
pick on someone else next."

"But it was
someone else this time, Mr. Richardson." Tim sounded dejected.
"Poor Marie has a speech impediment and they were teasing her
something awful. I had to do something."

Cal smiled at
Tim's chivalry. "Did they stop?"

"Yeah, after I
called them cowards for picking on a girl but then this kid in
Lydia's class, Tyler, asked if I was man enough to take him and he
started shoving me. Then two of his buddies and his brother Steve,
the one in my class, started shoving me. So I kicked him hard in
the ankle and punched his brother in the nose."

"Are you
hurt?" Cal asked sympathetically.

"Nothing
serious, maybe a couple of bruises." Tim shrugged it off.

"Okay, guy.
We're on our own for supper. How about you and me head over to
Local Heroes and catch the start of the CFL game? I think it's
Hamilton at Montreal." Then Cal thought for a bit. "How's the
homework?"

Tim's broad
smile changed to a crestfallen look. "Just a couple of pages of
math."

"Okay. The
offer still stands, but we'll go home and get the homework done
first."

Cal dropped
Tim off at his house shortly after eight-thirty. Phyl's new station
wagon was in the driveway and Felicity waved from the dining room
table as they came in.

Tim said,
"Thanks, Mr. Richardson," and went up to his room.

Phyl beckoned
from the kitchen and asked, quietly, "So what happened?"

"You know
Marie with the lisp?" Phyl thought for a second, then nodded.
"Well, four boys were teasing her in the yard at second break and
Tim tried to put a stop to it."

"That's pretty
brave of him."

"Yes, well.
They turned their attention to Tim instead. He got in two good
blows then took a few himself before the on duty teacher put a stop
to it."

"What did the
principal say?"

"The other
boys all told her the same story, that Tim started it. He did throw
the first real punch, but they were shoving him around for a while
first. She wanted to punish him for the whole incident."

"What did you
say?"

"I asked her
what she was going to do about the bullies and she tried to blame
Tim. So I told her that she needs to do a better job supervising
the yard and that Tim had already been punished and didn't need any
more. Then I just left her there debating whether to yell at me and
told Tim we were going."

Phyl nodded.
"Thanks, Cal. I think you handled it better than either Harry or I
would have. I would have gone all passive-aggressive and agreed
with her to shut her up then told Tim that the principal was being
an idiot. Harry would have sent some sort of a mixed message by
being proud that he stood up for Marie and disappointed that he got
into trouble for it. I like what you did." She gave Cal a sunny
smile to say thanks. "I just made some decaf. Do you want a cup?
The girls have another half hour or so before they are finished
their project."

"That sounds
great. I took Tim to Local Heroes for supper and I ate too much.
The coffee will definitely help." Cal smiled appreciatively.

Phyl gave an
affectionate smile in return and busied herself tidying the kitchen
while debriefing Cal on the girls' evening.

Phyl was
muttering as she tried on the fourth, and last, of her black
dresses. "Lydia, come help me with my zipper."

Lydia came in
to her mother's bedroom to see a small pile of dresses on the foot
of the bed and a much larger pile at the head. "Sure Mom. What's
up?"

"Cal asked if
I wanted to go with him to the literacy foundation fund raiser this
year. I was hoping that I'd have a dark dress that still fit me."
Phyl pointed in exasperation at the small pile. "Only those dresses
still fit me. And they're all bright colours."