Queen Bee Goes Home Again (34 page)

At least the textbook was in English. Maybe I could manage by doing the assignments.

I tried to relax and get the gist of what the professor was saying, but the more I attempted to force it, the more nervous, confused, and worried I became.

Suddenly there was a pregnant pause, and I looked up to see everyone staring at me.
“Et vous madame,”
(and you, ma'am) the teacher said to me.
“Comment vous appelez-vous?”
(What's your name?)

“Je suis Lin Breedlove,”
I shot back, then realized my error.

My first day, and I couldn't even get my
name
right? Or my reply.

“Pardon, madame,”
I hastily corrected. (Sorry.)
“Je m'appelle Lin Scott.”
(My name is Lin Scott.)

As it had when I'd gone to Paris with Phil on our twentieth anniversary, my good accent brought on an onslaught of even faster French, so I waited till she stopped for breath, then trotted out my favorite phrase:
“Je vous en prie, madame, parlez plus lentement et distinctement. Je suis sourde comme un pot.”
(I pray you, ma'am, please speak a little more slowly and distinctly. I'm deaf as a post.)

At least, that's what I thought I said.

The teacher burst out laughing, but nobody else got it.

“C'est vrai,”
I deadpanned. (It's true.)

She arched a perfectly shaped brunette brow and pronounced slowly,
“C'est à voir.”
(We'll see.)

Now that, I could understand.

Then she went right back to talking a mile a minute. The rest of the class was a blur of trying to pick out the instructions hiding in her barrage of French and failing abysmally.

At the end, she took pity on us and gave out the assignment in English, then explained we'd have to do at least three exercises a week in the language lab.

Assuming I could find the language lab, I decided to get that over with right after my classes on Tuesdays.

Boy, did I have a lot of catching up to do, especially with my grammar and irregular verbs.

After that, I found the classroom for my survey course on world history and was happy to discover that my professor was young, kind, and spoke clearly. Best of all, he said that if we took good notes, we really didn't need to use the textbook, which had a lot of extraneous material.

It was so nice to hear someone casually use the word
extraneous
.

I loved history, which had changed drastically since I'd studied it in high school thanks to recent finds and DNA analysis, plus the politically correct filter applied to the facts. Still, this professor seemed like a winner, so I checked that class off my worry list and took copious notes about a politically correct (but decidedly unscriptural) interpretation of prehistoric man.

After that came English, with another kind, flexible young professor, who started off discussing the “magic realism” novel we would all read and analyze, about four contemporary Native American characters who struggle with leaving their reservation for good.

In all my previous years as an avid reader, I'd never heard of magic realism, but he explained it perfectly.

I just hoped I could manage to read the book without having my weirdness kick in.

Then came math.

 

Fifty

College algebra. I shiver now, just thinking about it.

When Cathy registered my classes in October, I'd told her it didn't matter that I'd tested out of remedial algebra, because I'd done it by eliminating the two clearly wrong answers, then eeny-meeny-miney-moing the two choices that remained, which turned out to be right in too many cases. I'd insisted that I needed a review class (noncredit) before I tackled college algebra, but she'd insisted right back that I at least give the regular algebra a try. Then she'd reassured me that I could always drop it if I found myself over my head, and take something else.

It didn't take me but three minutes in that math classroom to know I was over my head. My female professor began by asking who could define and explain quadratic equations.

Shoot! Shoot, shoot, shoot.

Hands went up all over the room.

I had no clue what the question or the student's answer meant.

My brain seized.

Shoot, shoot, shoot! Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot—

Oh, quit griping,
my practical self scolded,
and focus on what she's saying! You might understand
something.

The teacher activated the white “smartboard” that provided an unending list of equations, which she solved at record speed, rattling off a stream of mathspeak as she did.

Shades of French!

My inner child promptly had a hissy fit.

Mildly hysterical beneath my frozen exterior, I managed to keep from running screaming from the classroom while the instructor continued to race through dozens of equations on the “smartboard.”

When the teacher dismissed us half an hour early, I waited till almost everyone else had left to approach her. “Excuse me, ma'am, but I'm afraid this class is
way
over my head.”

She faced me squarely, matter-of-fact. “I appreciate your telling me right away. You can register for another class, making room for someone who might want to get into this one.”

Apparently, gone were the days of “Let's see how we can help you manage this.”

Feeling totally inadequate, I nodded, then headed for Cathy's office. I had forty-five minutes before anthropology, so I hoped she could get me into another Tuesday-Thursday core course in that time slot.

I had to wait for twenty minutes before she was free, but when Cathy talked it over with me, she checked availability against my required courses, and informed me that human biology had an opening in that time slot.

Not even thinking there might be a reason the class wasn't filled, I sagged in relief. “Oh, good. I'm great with body stuff.”

“The only thing is,” Cathy said, “some people have trouble understanding the professor. She's from Nigeria. But it's the only core science class open that fits your current schedule.”

The comment about not understanding went in one ear and out the other, but not the “it's the only core science class that fits.” Next she said, “You'll have to do lab once a week. I'll see if I can find one that's open after your last class.”

As it turned out, there was an opening for lab with the same biology instructor on Thursdays, so I hadn't missed the first one.

Again, it didn't occur to me that there might be a reason why her lab wasn't full.

“I'll notify your new professor,” Cathy said. “Fortunately, you've only missed the first lecture.”

“Thanks so much.” At my age, I couldn't afford to drag my classes out. I needed to take a full load, and then some. And make at least a C average, preferably a B.

Whether I could manage it remained to be seen. So far, I was doubtful, since I couldn't even get my own name right.

Anthropology was next. Though the windowless classroom was crammed with decaying cardboard boxes of specimens, the professor was a hoot. He assigned each table as a team, which didn't work out so well for me, because a passive-aggressive girl from my government class ended up on my team.

But the prof was so excited about what he was teaching that I couldn't help liking him, even though he refused to admit even the
possibility
that Homo sapiens might have evolved from its own distinct ancestor. But he didn't treat me like an idiot for asking, so I liked him.

Science was always so adamantly sure of its prevailing theories, when, in fact, the entire system was only a series of wrong conclusions working toward the truth.

I mean, if I'd told him ten years before that I could prove every person on the planet came from a single sub-Saharan African mother, would he have even entertained the possibility?

I think not. But all in all, I liked the class.

When it was finished, late in the afternoon, I decided to do my language lab assignments, since I had biology lab on Thursdays.

As it turned out, there was so much ambient noise in the language lab that my mid-range nerve deafness made it almost impossible for me to hear the voices on the verbal French exercises. I turned the volume up all the way, but it was still so soft and distant that I was stumped. So I finally gave up and resolved to have Cathy work out a way for me to do them in the quiet rooms.

 

Fifty-one

When I turned in at our driveway at seven that evening, Miss Mamie and Carla and Tommy were waiting for me in the light from the dining room by the porte cochere.

Worn out, I parked under the cover, then joined them on the porch.

“So, how'd it go?” Tommy asked with a smile when I got out, his breath clouding in the cold.

Frankly, I was too tired and hollow to talk about it, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I said, “Scary. And hard. I had to switch math for human biology.” Embarrassed—why, I couldn't tell you—I curled my lips inward, then I admitted, “You were right. I need to study some more before I tackle algebra. Maybe summer quarter. Or next fall.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

The Mame bustled over and pulled my coat closed, then put her arm around my shoulders. “You look exhausted. Come inside, and we'll all have vegetable soup and cornbread to warm us up. Then you can tell us all about it.”

Maybe I'd have the energy to go through it all after I'd eaten. “Soup sounds perfect.” Miss Mamie's “vegetable” soup had shredded white-meat chicken and homemade chicken stock, canned Roma tomatoes, Silver Queen corn that she'd frozen herself, butter peas, fried bacon, and plenty of chopped Vidalias. No okra, no peppers to override the flavors. And her cornbread was moist and buttery, a perfect base for homemade blackberry jam.

After we'd all eaten and cleaned up, Miss Mamie took off her apron and sat facing me. “Okay, tell us all about it.”

I couldn't deny her a blow-by-blow account, since her gold had paid my tuition. So I gave her my day and my new beginning, with plenty of humor salted in. We laughed a lot. Then I headed for bed, dragging my loaded briefcase up the stairs behind me.

I would study hard the next day, but that night, I wanted to sleep.

Nodding off in my soft, warm bed, my last conscious thought was that I'd only thought of Connor twice all day. Not counting thinking about thinking about him.

But then, blast it, I dreamed about him all night.

Just rats.

 

Fifty-two

The next morning I woke up grumpy from my mind's refusal to let go of Connor. I brushed my teeth, raked an Afro pick through my curls, then threw on a warm pair of sweats and headed for the big house for some company, picking up my copy of the
Gainesville Times
on the way.

Dadgum Connor. I'd been fine on my own for years till he came around. Now, thanks to him, I no longer found myself good company.

It didn't help much having Miss Mamie and Carla and Tommy sip their coffee in silence as Mama read her
Gainesville Times
and he, his Gwinnett paper. Carla entertained herself with a book of sudoku.

I'd rather take a beating than try to do another sudoku. One was enough for a lifetime with me.

Feeling anything but energized, I snapped to when the front doorbell rang.

Connor?

Tommy jumped to his feet. “I'll get it.”

“No.” I was standing, too. “Please let me.”

Tommy shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Miss Mamie, she don't say nothin'; just eyed us over her coffee.

I saw the florist's van through the front door, and somebody I didn't recognize holding a huge glass globe overflowing with purple tulips.

Not Connor. My spirits fell.

Drat. Drat, drat, drat.

When I opened the door, the deliveryman asked me where I'd like him to put them.

I pointed toward the long table behind me. “On the dining room table. Let me get your tip.”

I went to my purse on the shelf of our Victorian hat rack, coat hanger, and umbrella stand in the foyer, then opened my wallet. No ones, just a single five.

“Here.” I gave it to him. “Thanks.”

Pleased by my generosity, he offered a little salute, then left.

On my way back to the kitchen, I eyed the enclosure card with dread, wishing it wasn't from Phil, but knowing it was.

Tulips, this time of year. A needless extravagance. But Phil had always expressed his feelings for me (assuming he'd ever had any) with expensive gifts that felt like bribes.

Obviously, he had no idea what other flowers I liked (there were plenty) so he'd stuck with the tulips like a needle caught in a scratch on a record, and just as annoying.

The enclosed note confirmed my fear. “I know you,” he wrote. “What you like. What you love. What you need. Please let me love you the way I should have all along. I'm not the same, selfish man. Your true husband, Phil.”

I started to soften a bit, then remembered he'd only come back because
Bambi
had dumped
him.

“Well, I know you, too.” I wadded up the card and threw it into the gas flames in the foyer fireplace. “So the answer is definitely no.”

All his words were right, except for the conspicuous omission of
Christ
or
Jesus
.

My sensible self told me Phil was nobody's fool, then asked what he was up to.

The still, small voice chimed in with
he wants something.
But it didn't tell me what.

I fought the urge to call Connor and ask him if he'd felt the same thing, but didn't dare. He'd asked for time to pray over our relationship, so I had to respect that.

That left my family. So I took the flowers into the kitchen and plonked them on the table.