Queen Bee Goes Home Again (33 page)

I wanted to believe that, but I was still a prisoner of my emotions. “I'll try to look out, not in,” I promised.

Forgive and be free.

Right. I couldn't even forgive Connor for letting a single piece of scripture drive him away.

So I couldn't forgive. Yet.

But I could go back to college.

So on the very next morning, I did just that, and boy, did I learn a lot. Not so much in the lectures as between them.

Boy, had college changed.

 

Forty-eight

I left forty minutes early for campus, and good thing, because the parking lots were almost full when I got there at seven-thirty. After a half hour of searching, I finally found a spot in the lot beside the Humanities Building and hurried to make my first class in time.

Along the way, I sized up every student and professor I saw. Apparently, being back on academic turf was all it took to activate my long-buried adolescent self-consciousness and judgmentalness.

I evaluated and criticized every student I passed, then criticized myself for doing it.

First Connor, now this.

Don't think about Connor!

Only the older students—nontraditional, I corrected—wore coats against the wind and cold. The rest had on drab hoodies with jeans so tight, they looked sprayed on, many of them deliberately ragged.

I really couldn't tell much about my fellow students beyond that, with their heads covered and hands dug deeply into the front pockets of their hoodies.

By the time I got to the entrance, I realized that the only people with rolling briefcases appeared to be professors. The others all toted backpacks.

I took the elevator to the third floor for my Communications class. When I got there, all the seats against the far wall and back were filled with semicomatose students, so I claimed the first seat in the next-to-farthest row, parking my rolly thing in front of me, then pulling out my pen and legal pad.

I was the only one present wearing nice clothes, so I stuck out like a pink-iced cupcake in a platter of brownies. Since my daily uniform was black travel pants, cotton knit tops that varied with the season, and colorful jackets or long sweaters, I had plenty of nice yet comfortable clothes, but very few jeans. And my jeans were dark, not ripped and faded like the others'. Not that I'd be caught dead in ripped, faded denim.

A snicker sounded from behind me, but when I looked around, nobody made eye contact.

Then I realized they all had laptops or computer tablets.

Embarrassed, but mad at myself for being so, I turned back to peer at the lectern.

So I was a dodo. Big deal.

A laptop or tablet computer wouldn't do me any good. I'd tried again and again to learn to type without looking, but my brain was too stubborn to do it, and wasn't likely to change now. I had to see and hear things, then write them down, to memorize.

Embarrassed nonetheless, I turned around and waited for class to start.

A cute little blond girl in the row beside me, her computer plugged into the wall, introduced herself. “Hi, I'm Meredith. This is my first day.”

I turned and smiled, whispering back, “Me, too.”

She nodded, clearly grateful to find a friendly face. “I have to sit by the outlet because my battery conked out for good.”

“If I get here first, I'll save your seat,” I told her.

Dimples appeared in her cheeks. “Thanks. I take care of my mama, so I can't work. So money's really tight.”

Such ingenuous lucidity stirred my sympathy.

“I just lost my house and had to move back in with my mother,” I confided, wondering if the girl's mother was ill, or a drunk. I didn't mention that I had chosen to stay with Mama of my own free will when we'd found Daddy's treasure.

We both nodded, then she went back to her computer.

The room might have been in any high school, the chalkboards replaced by dry-marker whiteboards, except the teacher didn't have a desk, just a hypermodern rolling podium with a long electrical cord plugged into an outlet, and a tall swivel stool behind it.

Almost all the seats were filled when a tall, sandy-haired middle-aged man with glasses strode in. He had on a baggy wool sport coat over a gray pullover sweater, from which peeked a subdued plaid, button-down collar. Baggy, faded jeans and black running shoes completed his outfit, making him almost indistinguishable from his students, except for his jacket and absence of rips in his jeans.

Once he settled on the stool, he opened his notebook (a real one, not electronic), and commenced. “Okay. Please choose the seats you wish to stay in, because I'm going to put your names on the grid, here, and call roll for the first and last time. After that, I can tell who's missing from the chart. And believe me, your absences will be noted.”

He glanced up, seeing that we'd all stayed where we were. “Change if you want to, or forever hold your peace.”

Nobody moved a whit except the boys against the back wall, who planted their feet in a territorial gesture to claim their places.

Must be Baptists. They love the back row.

Don't say Baptist,
my inner self chided. I shoved the thought of Connor back into its tiny closet and slammed the door.

“Breedlove,” the professor called out, and my hand was halfway up before the girl next to me answered.

Breedlove!
Why had I done that? I wasn't a Breedlove anymore. Hadn't been for forty-one years. I was Lin Scott.

By the time the professor got to the
s
s, half the class was dozing in the warm classroom.

“Scott,” he called out.

“Here.” Nobody registered my answer but the teacher.

I was hoping to ace the course. I'd done lots of speaking for charity events, so I prayed it wouldn't be hard.

“As you can see from your schedules,” he said, “I am Dr. Ellis. I have twenty-five years' experience teaching creative writing in Ohio, but because my doctorate is in communications, the powers that be in this institution have insisted I teach only communications. As an
adjunct,
” he emphasized, clearly unhappy over the whole thing.

Uh-oh. He had a Ph.D. and twenty-five years of teaching experience, and he couldn't get a full-time job with benefits in a community college?

So much for any aspirations I had about working there someday. High school, it would have to be.

Our instructor handed out copies of the course syllabus, and I was dismayed to see three lessons—back-to-back just after midterms—that set off alarm bells: PowerPoint Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. All of it, in less than two weeks!

Aaaaggggh!

I struggled to remain outwardly calm, because nobody else seemed to be upset.

Maybe I could find somebody to give me a crash course, so I could practice, first.

That was the thing about trying to master new skills at my age: I needed time and a tutor to distill the instructions, so I could write each important step down to remember it.

Ask Cathy about a tutor for PowerPoint,
I wrote in the top margin, above the date, page, and class name I'd already put on the first ten pages so I wouldn't have to do it while I was taking notes.

Dr. Ellis hit a button on the lectern, projecting an overview of the syllabus to the whiteboard. “As you can see, you will be responsible for giving three presentations, the last of which is integrated with PowerPoint visuals.”

Definitely needed that tutor. And while I was at it, maybe I could find somebody to take me through the ins and outs of the student Web site. I kept forgetting to go there to check my student e-mail, and when I did, I still couldn't find half the stuff I was looking for.

Class time was only half done when Dr. Ellis finished the syllabus. “My e-mail address is at the top of your syllabus. If something truly dire happens—like the flu, or a sick child, or a death in your immediate family, contact me by e-mail so we can work something out. My objective is for you to learn how to state your case clearly, with good evidence, before an audience, not to punish you when life intervenes. But
do not
call me. I don't ever answer my phone messages.”

Do not call him! E-mail on school Web site,
I wrote in caps at the top of the page.

He looked at the class. “Lucky you. Class dismissed.”

As I gathered my things, he looked up from the lectern and asked, “What brings a woman like you here?”

Caught off guard, I sputtered, “I want to get my degree.”

He frowned. “In what?”

Please. Bug off!

But he was the teacher, so I answered with a defensive, “English.”

He shook his head. “Haven't you heard all the jokes about people with English majors driving cabs and mowing lawns and—”

“I want to teach English in high school,” I said, summoning my inner duchess. “Preferably in Mimosa Branch.”

Again, he shook his head at my naivety. “Did you check to see if they might have any openings by the time you finish?” he challenged.

Of course not, but I wasn't about to tell him. “You'll find,” I said, my tone icy, “that I always do my homework.”

He broke into a grin. “I like how you went all aloof when I pried. Very good.” With that, he headed for the door. “See you on Thursday.”

Relieved that he'd left, I gave him a long head start, then hiked over to the student center for some coffee in my unexpected break. Inside the eating area, small groups of matching kids took up most of the tables: geeks, goths, rednecks, Hispanics, Vietnamese, popular girls and guys, wallflowers, loners, et cetera, based on their appearance. Since I didn't fit into any of those categories, I found a two-top near the wall and settled in to watch.

On one end of the cafeteria, a game room offered a maze of computer stations, lit to varying degrees, that allowed the students to play Internet games or do research. Whenever the door opened, the sound of electronic bombs and gunfire escaped. Based on the screens I could see, only a couple of Asians were actually doing assignments.

When I finished my coffee, I headed down the wide hallway that led to Registration. On the right, all the special-use rooms had glass walls onto the corridor. Opposite the student bookstore, one room was reserved for “multicultural” students, even though all the seats were taken by African Americans, which didn't seem very multicultural to me. Next to that, a room marked
NONTRADITIONAL STUDENTS
provided an island of calm for people like me. Checking it out, I found six women inside, all but one of them using the computers hooked up to the school's network, with several small tables and chairs at the back, and a long one in the center covered by the spread-out papers and books of a
very
heavy woman who looked about forty and didn't make eye contact, bless her heart.

I sat at a computer on the shelf against the wall and slowly managed to access my student e-mail. Fortunately, nothing had come in since the night before.

Satisfied that I'd managed it without any help, I signed off, then started for my next class with fifteen minutes to spare.

Smile,
I had to remind myself.
Be friendly, no matter what they think of you.

Easier said than done. I felt like a walking anachronism, which I was.

On the way back to the quad, I discovered that the handicapped exit buttons didn't work, so I had to back into both doors, bumping some of the incoming students, to get my briefcase outside.

Report broken doors to maintenance,
I made a mental note, even though I knew I'd forget it the minute I got to class.

Then I headed for American Government, which turned out to be very different from the whitewashed version of history I'd learned in high school. Though the curriculum was clearly designed to drop a shipload of guilt on every white founding father and current white student, I liked my woman professor a lot. She was down-to-earth and succinct, which I deeply appreciated.

As for my fellow students, they were so clueless, I felt sorry for them. I mentally checked Government off my worry list. If they wanted political correctness, I could give it to them, even though I silently refused to take the rap for my racist ancestors, Daddy included.

I mean, really. I've never been a racist. My whole life, I'd considered people, people, end of story.

Then I headed for French.

 

Forty-nine

NOTE
: This is my recollection, so the French is probably mangled, but that's my fault, not my teacher's.

“Bonjour mesdemoiselles, mesdames, messieurs,”
my tall, elegant French teacher greeted.
“Je m'appelle Madame Fouchet. Asseyez-vous, s'il vous plaît.”
She strolled closer, down the single aisle between the tables and chairs that faced the board in rows.
“Aujourd'hui, et tout les cours avec moi, nous parlerons seulement français ici.”
She paused.
“Comprenez-vous?”

She said it all so fast, my ears couldn't keep up.

Okay. Think. Hello, girls, ladies, men. Please sit down. I am Madame Fouchet. Today, and all your lessons with me, we will speak only French here. Understand?

Non!
By the time I'd translated, she was rattling off a bunch more French.

Oh, heaven help me. I should have taken Spanish. That way, we'd have started off with the basics.

But I'd aced two years of French in high school, so I'd CLEPed out of Basic French, thinking I'd save time and money by taking Intermediate and Advanced French.

Can we say,
wrong
? In English, please.

The teacher rattled away while I developed flop sweat.

I copied down the homework on the board, then got out my huge textbook and turned to page 200 in the middle of the book, not because I understood the teacher, but because the cute little brunette beside me told me where they were.