Nobody Girl (7 page)

“Ms. Clark, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a
moment?
” Lena asked during lunch one day.

“Sure, Lena, what is it.” Delia put down her sandwich and motioned for Lena to take a seat.

Lena sat down, tucked her dark brown hair behind her ear then stared at her thumbs for a moment before saying, “Well, I know I’m in the dumb class, but
— ”

“Don’t say that; it’s not the dumb class.”

“Well, I know I’m in the lower level class, but I really want to advance and I was wondering if you could give me some extra work or something so that I can improve. I really want to do well so I can go to college with my brother.”

“Of course.
I can make up some worksheets and some practice tests and we can go over them during lunch or something. Will that work?”

Lena smiled and nodded furiously. Delia realized that she was not only offering Lena some needed extra math help, but also a much needed friendship.

“So where is your brother going to college?”

“Oh, he’s not sure yet. It’s my twin brother actually, Levi. But he’s a genius and he’ll probably get into anywhere he applies. We’ve never been apart for more than a week and that was when we were twelve. I don’t think I could survive going to a different school from him. But I also don’t want him to have to go to a dumb school because of me.”

“Lena, why do you keep saying you’re dumb?”

Lena dried her palms on her green uniform skirt like she always did when she was nervous and searched for words carefully. “When you’re at the bottom, it hurts less when you fall.”

***

Two weeks later, Delia entered her classroom amidst a buzz of gossip.

“I heard he got kicked out of George Washington Prep for smuggling drugs,” Courtney Baker said to a group of senior girls in Delia’s classroom.

“No, that’s why he got kicked out of St. Steven’s.  He got kicked out of GW Prep for smashing the windows of his Spanish teacher’s car,” Rachel
Clore
said.

“Well, it doesn’t matter why he got kicked out, the point is he’s out and I heard Saxon Arms was the only private school in D.C. that would take him now.”  Courtney glared at Rachel for correcting her in front of the other girls.  Courtney was the gossip queen of Saxon Arms and there was no way she wanted to share that title with anyone.

“I have a hundred dollars that says he takes me to the homecoming dance,” Angie Morris said as she stood on a desk holding up a crisp hundred dollar bill.

“Are you crazy?  He only dates college girls,” Courtney said.

“I hear he has two girlfriends at Georgetown and one at American,” Rachel chimed.

“I’ll take that bet,” Ian said from across the room as he took out his wallet.  “There’s no way C.J. Mitchell is taking your skanky ass to the homecoming dance.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Delia announced.  She didn’t want to hear any more about this spoiled trouble maker that she would soon have to put up with.  “How many times do I have to tell you losers about gambling?”

“It doesn’t make mathematical sense to gamble,” Ian said in a mocking voice.  “But seriously,
this time the numbers are
in my favor.  C.J. Mitchell is the coolest high school guy in the city.  He wouldn’t give Angie a second glance.”  Angie balled up a piece of paper and lobed it at Ian’s head.

“I heard he dated an Olsen twin,” Courtney said, trying to shift the conversation back to her. 

Courtney liked to be the only source of information for the school.  She was starting to get visibly annoyed with interjections from other people, especially Rachel, who added, “I heard he dated Lindsay
Lohan
too.  You see, he only likes older women.” 

Delia rolled her eyes.  If an Olsen twin and Lindsay
Lohan
were considered older women, what was she?
Ancient?

Delia sat at her desk and studied her lesson plans for the day when she felt someone staring at her.  She looked up at her students.  It wasn’t any of them.   They were looking at the door.  She followed their eyes to a familiar figure standing in her doorway.  It was a very familiar figure indeed. 

It was Chase.
Chase Donovan from the cruise.
What in the world was he doing in her classroom and in a Saxon Arms uniform?

He looked exactly the same except he was clean shaven and his curly hair had grown longer and now looked shaggy and a little unkempt.  He brushed it off his forehead, revealing those gorgeous dark blue eyes and sending a shiver down Delia’s spine.

She was just about to ask him what he was doing in her classroom when he blurted, “I’m C.J.”

Delia started sneezing.

Chase couldn’t believe his eyes.  He wanted to run up to her and kiss her but that would be inappropriate.  That would be very inappropriate considering she was now his math teacher.  Delia was still sneezing. 
God, that
was the cutest sneeze he had ever heard. Suddenly, he remembered where he was.  He was a junior at Saxon Arms, his fourth private school in a year and a half.  He had a reputation to keep up.  Chase swaggered to the back of the room, flopped down in his seat, and placed his baseball cap over his face.  He pretended he was sleeping as Delia tried to carry on with class.

“Take out a sheet of paper,” she announced between sneezes. “Pop quiz.” All the students groaned simultaneously. Considering it was only the third week of school and they had just finished a unit, it was odd timing to be giving a pop quiz, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do.  She was too shocked to actually teach something and she was sneezing so much she had trouble breathing.

Delia wrote two problems on the board that she knew would take them the entire period to figure out.  Then she sat at her desk and looked for her allergy medication.  Even though she knew it wouldn’t help, she felt she needed to take something.  She was starting to get a migraine as well.  While the class was intently working on the problems, she spied a glance at Chase or C.J. or whatever that lying bastard’s name was.  He was slouched in his chair with his head back, arms crossed, and a hat over his face as if he didn’t have a care in the world.  He shouldn’t be wearing a hat with the uniform. It was against dress code. And she thought she saw him chewing gum. That was against the rules too. Delia wanted to throw something at him.  How dare he come into her class like this? 
After what they had been to each other.
Then she realized something. 
She
was the
teacher,
she didn’t have to take this from him.  She could kick him out if she wanted to.

Delia blew her nose then marched over to the back of the classroom.  She flicked the hat off his face and said, “What do you think you’re doing?  There’s a quiz.”  Chase/C.J. sat up and met Delia’s stare.   Her heart raced and tears burned behind her eyes as she looked into his all too familiar face and realized how he’d lied to her. How he’d so completely and thoroughly lied to her.

They held each other in their emotion filled glare for so long that the other students began to whisper among themselves.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Is he
gonna
hit her or something?”

Then, without saying a word, he snatched a sheet of paper off of his neighbor’s desk, took a pencil from the inside of his blazer and started writing.

When the bell rang, Delia collected the papers and started grading immediately so she wouldn’t have to think about what just happened.  As expected, everyone failed the quiz.  Well, almost everyone.  There was one paper that was completely correct.  There was no name on it, but she could give a pretty good guess as to who it was especially since there was a note at the bottom of the page that said, “We need to talk.”

***

Donna Lee exited the boardroom in a huff after another frustrating meeting. She had worked for
The Sport’s Guy
magazine for two years and she still never got assigned the stories she wanted.  And she knew exactly why too. It was because she didn’t have a pair of balls dangling between her legs. Either that or because she’d slept with the chief editor one night after a staff party then never returned his calls. She had to remember not to bring the bed into the boardroom.

After slamming her notebook on her desk, she flung herself into her chair with so much force that the chair rolled back and nearly knocked over the cubicle wall. Sliding out the keyboard drawer, she started typing the title to yet another figure skating story. She planned on banging out the story in ten minutes flat then sneaking out to catch the National’s batting practice. She thought by forming alliances with local teams she would be primed to get the scoop on the next big story. Plus their new second baseman had the best ass she’d ever seen.

Just as she finished typing the last few phrases of her story about the upcoming U.S. trials, her cell phone buzzed.

“Where are you?” her sister’s voice yelled.

“I’m at work, why?”

“Meet me at P.F. Chang’s now. It’s important.” Donna Lee was out of her chair and putting on her coat before she even hung up. She knew it had to be something serious if Delia was calling in the middle of the day.

Mere steps away from the door, Jeff Tanner, the chief editor, noticed her trying to escape.

“Ms. Clark, where do you think you’re going?” She hated when he tried to be overly formal and called her Ms. They had shared a bed together for God’s sake. There was no need for titles.

She glared at his red hair and freckled face and wondered what she ever saw in him. Then she remembered. She had just broken up with Kyle and needed to relieve some stress. He was just rebound sex, but he wanted more and caught an attitude when Donna Lee wasn’t interested in anything more.

“Lay off, Jeff. I’m taking my lunch break.”

“You’re not going anywhere until you turn in your story. We need to send it to copy so we can catch
all
of your mistakes.”

He made it seem like she was the worse writer on staff. He knew good and well that her stories were virtually flawless. She so badly wanted to say that
he
was her only mistake. Instead, she stormed back to her desk, hit print then said, “There you go,” while waving to the office printer theatrically.

Then she burst through the door onto the street and ran the six blocks to P.F. Chang’s.

“Okay, what’s this about?” Donna Lee said breathlessly, taking a seat across from Delia.

“I’m Mary Kay Letourneau,” Delia said after blowing her nose into her napkin.  Donna Lee couldn’t figure out whether she had been crying or just having one of her stress induced allergy attacks.

“Who?”

“Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher out in California that slept with her thirteen-year-old student.  She had two kids from him. 
Maybe three.
She went to jail.  I’m going to jail!”  Delia started crying into her napkin.  Donna Lee reached across the table and grabbed her hand.

“Oh my God, you’re pregnant? Dee, that’s not the worst thing in the world. I’ll help you. We can
— ”