Forty-One
Trudy
Principal Hendon had given Trudy a paid week off “to minimize distractions.” The night of the board meeting, Dub took Pete to see E.T.
for a fourth time. For better or worse, Leta Pearl would be there; Trudy had still not forgiven her, but someone in her corner couldn’t hurt.
Though she did ask Leta Pearl to behave.
“Flies and honey, Mama. Remember that, please.”
“Never liked that saying,” Leta Pearl said. “Flies like dog shit way more than they like honey.”
She reminded herself that Haskel was in her corner too, but they’d barely spoken since she left his house that night.
He insisted, however, on giving her a ride.
Weirdly, when he arrived, he was wearing his Member’s Only jacket over a shirt with no tie.
On the way there, they reviewed everything she planned to say.
The boys got into a fight, and she sent them to the principal.
Indeed, it was Coach Meechum’s rule that had them miss the game, not hers.
In fact, she even tried to get Coach Meechum to let them play, but he refused.
When they arrived at City Hall, however, Haskel pulled up to the door and said, “This is your stop.”
Trudy looked at him quizzically. “Oh. Thanks, but you can park the car; I don’t mind walking.”
Haskel faced forward. “I’m not coming in.”
Trudy drew her eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s tell the truth,” he said. “This is never going to be the way it should.”
She closed her eyes. “Haskel,” she whispered, the only honest word she could find. She placed her hand on top of his, on the console. “Can we talk about this later? I need you in there tonight.”
He shook his head, turned his palm upwards, and caressed the back of her hand with his thumb, then slid the diamond ring from her finger.
It came off easily. She had no instinctive reflex to stop him.
They were no longer touching. He closed his fist around the ring and placed it in his jacket pocket, the one over his heart.
A painful angst simmered in her chest. She thought of the house he was building for her. For them . But Haskel had stopped eating Leta Pearl’s love biscuits and he’d fallen out of love, hadn’t he? The same had probably happened to Shug, who she hadn’t seen or heard from since homecoming.
Now, Trudy’s ex-fiancé got out of the car, walked around to open her door. She paused before standing, unsure whether exiting the car was unkind. He kissed her on the cheek, held her face in his hands while their gazes traversed the torture of completion.
It happened so fast. Just ninety seconds ago she was engaged to the man who stood in front of her. Now she was single.
“I’m going on a trip,” he said. “Somewhere no one knows me. Just a few days.”
“What about June Bug?”
“Lucy’s there at the house.”
“You can’t just leave .” Trudy tightened her grip on his forearm, worry creeping in. “What about this meeting?”
He grasped her shoulders and smiled. “You’ll stand up for yourself; you won’t need me.”
Her eyes began to sting.
“Don’t back down. You’ve done nothing wrong. Okay?”
A tear fell over her eyelid.
He kissed her cheek, squeezed her hands, then let go. She could only stand there in disbelief and take it all in; it all seemed so surreal.
From the driver’s side door, he said, “Trudy? After this is over ... I think you’d make a much better coach’s wife than a politician’s.” He shrugged. “For what it’s worth.”
He knew. How he knew, she couldn’t be sure, but he was letting her go because he at least sensed something that confirmed they could never give themselves fully to one another.
“Are you coming back?”
“Of course!” Haskel laughed. “I’m running for mayor!” He got in his car and drove out of the lot, headed down Court Street, and turned left on Tennessee.
She watched the signal switch to yellow then red while the lights facing Tennessee Street turned green.
“Trudy? Honey?” Miss Duffy had appeared beside her interrupting her trance. “Come on, I’ll walk you in.” She looped her arm through Trudy’s and squeezed her elbow.
“Aren’t you still mad at me about Bear Bryant?”
“Oh, hush.”
Trudy’s mind became a three-ring-circus kind of crazy.
Haskel leaving was starting to anger her, but she needed to keep it together for this meeting.
Was he distancing himself as a last-ditch effort to win the election?
Did he seriously drive her to the meeting only to break up with her?
And where the hell was Leta Pearl? She said she’d be there. Was Shug coming?
Trudy sat with Miss Duffy on the front row. The room buzzed with chatter. The turnout was too large for Trudy’s liking, but perhaps a bit too small for Barbara’s, who’d taken a seat on the front row across the aisle, but directly behind the podium set up for public comments.
Trudy was fitfully nervous despite knowing nothing was so egregious she’d lose her job. She’d give Barbara the satisfaction of hearing herself talk, let her pitch her little hair show for everybody, and then move on to the next calamity.
Chairman of the board, Sonny Bishop’s question about Haskel’s whereabouts got Trudy’s attention.
“He went on a trip,” she blurted without thinking.
Sonny Bishop eyed Trudy over his glasses. “A trip?”
She shrugged. “Just now, actually. I don’t know where.”
“Hopefully not over a cliff,” Barbara Beaumont said and the whole room gasped.
Sonny Bishop banged his gavel. The other three board members, Hank Powell, Buzz Watkins, and Elroy Markham, scowled.
Trudy swallowed, willed herself not to react, to keep the belly fire inside her tame. Why had she worn that wool skirt? Her armpits soaked her blouse, simultaneously icy and hot.
Sonny said, “Without Superintendent Moody, we’ll need to postpone Item One until next month. So, Item Two: formal complaint from the Concerned Parents of Bailey Springs , Mrs. Barbara Beaumont presenting.”
Smug and terrible, with a face that made Trudy want to stab it with a pitchfork, Barbara Beaumont took two steps and opened her three-ring binder of notes on the podium.
In a tone more suited for a funeral, she said, “It is regretful, gentlemen, why I’m here this evening.
But sometimes, we must make difficult decisions to right the course of history.
Honorable gentlemen, perhaps Trudy Abernathy has simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This does, after all, seem to be a theme whenever she’s involved. ”
Trudy’s toes gripped inside her shoes. She wished she’d worn taller heels.
“But tonight is not about digging up skeletons,” Barbara continued, pulling a sheet out of her binder.
“Here is a collection, gentlemen, of Miss Abernathy’s missteps, in chronological order, as a Bailey Springs High School faculty member.
I believe you will agree it’s clear: the issue before us tonight is the welfare and safety of our children. ”
Trudy tried to look unfazed but caught herself shaking her head and rolling her eyes. Barbara handed four copies of her list to Sonny Bishop who distributed them to the board. She said a few more words, but Trudy tuned her out, so annoyed by this nonsense.
“Miss Abernathy?” Sonny Bishop said. “Let’s review this list, shall we?” She found herself walking to the podium with Barbara Beaumont sitting behind her.
“Is it true you never offered insurance plans to your students?”
“Insurance?” Trudy thought back to the first day of school, all the chaos, Shug’s pep rally. “Oh! I guess so.” Barbara was right; she’d completely forgotten to pass out the insurance brochures.
“And what can you tell us about this lunch money?”
“Whose lunch money?”
“Says here Miss Duffy confirmed that you sent back an empty envelope, with no money and an entire spool of tickets missing?”
Trudy looked at Miss Duffy. “I’m so sorry, Trudy,” Miss Duffy said. “I wasn’t gonna say anything, but they interrogated me.”
“There’s a lot to accomplish on the first day of school,” Trudy explained. “It can get a little—”
“And what can you tell us about this, um ...” Sonny cleared his throat “...gay rights protest? Apparently, it was prevented by Deborah Delaney Beaumont? Did you side with homosexual rights protesters in the cafeteria, Miss Abernathy?”
“Dee Dee Beaumont dumped a plate of spaghetti on another cheerleader.”
Sonny Bishop peered at Trudy and blinked. “Okay. Let’s talk about the cheerleaders. What can you tell us about this bus ride to Pickwick where y’all nearly died in a fiery car crash and then you threatened to drive the busload of cheerleaders into the river?”
There were so many words in her chest, but none seemed capable of reaching her lips. What was wrong with her? The room started to feel like it was made of funhouse mirrors.
“Says here, Miss Abernathy, you let a student drive the bus home after the game. That true?”
Trudy shook her head. “I can’t drive a stick.”
“Miss Abernathy, we know you added a boy to the cheerleading squad, which is unconventional in Bailey Springs to say the least, but who approved that?”
“I did? I guess?”
“I see. And I suppose we’re to assume you also approved all the risqué gyrating?”
“I don’t pay much attention to their moves, sir, I just—”
“Well, you’re the sponsor. Isn’t that your job?”
“No. Yes. Look, no one ever ... I inherited that role.” Trudy’s stomach lurched; her nails dug into the podium as if holding onto the safety bar of the Wabash Cannonball at Opryland.
“What can you tell us about all the outlandish disciplinary procedures against June Bug Moody?”
She swallowed.
“You upset years of tradition, Miss Abernathy, with the Field House Run. And then, lo and behold, here we go again, trouble in your class the very day Paul Bear Bryant himself was coming to Bailey Springs. What do you have to say about that?”