Leta Pearl’s Love Biscuits

One

Trudy

“Mr. Hendon,” Trudy said brightly. “You might count your lucky stars because that’s exactly why I’m calling.”

“You know somebody who can teach chemistry?” he asked, bless his heart.

“Well, I graduated from UNA in May,” Trudy said. “And my student teaching was in science.” He didn’t need to know it was seventh grade science, a far cry from high school chemistry.

Principal Hendon laughed. “Trudy Abernathy? You ... want to teach? At Bailey Springs High School?”

She stiffened, trying to keep his disbelief from hurting her feelings. “Well ... I mean ... yeah. Yes. Yes, sir.” She tried for an assertive voice, like the article in Working Mother magazine had advised.

“Trudy, darling.” Mr. Hendon cleared his throat. “The last time we spoke, I took your cheerleading sweater away and nearly kicked you out of school.”

“That’s not entirely accurate,” Trudy noted.

“We have spoken to each other at the Piggly Wiggly several times since then. And there was that one Easter Sunday when you visited First Baptist?” Trudy fiddled with her bangs.

They looked flat in her mother’s antique beveled mirror hanging above the buffet in the dining room.

She really needed to get her roots done and a perm, something she’d been meaning to do ever since she’d let her blond hair grow out just past shoulder length.

She always had the smallest hair everywhere she went, but her hot rollers were simply useless in this humidity.

“And besides, that was seven years ago.”

In the background, Mr. Hendon’s rolling chair squeaked.

Trudy imagined him leaning back with his free hand behind his head, revealing sweat-stained armpits.

She wondered if his bald spot still made his hair look like a bird’s nest, whether he still combed it over in thin little stripes, whether he still had those chipmunk cheeks, reddened from snorting the flask of whiskey hidden in his desk.

“So, you just graduated?” he said. “And now you want to teach ... chemistry ?”

“As you know, Mr. Hendon, in the State of Alabama, you can teach any subject as long as you have a valid certificate, which I do. And, like I said, my student teaching was in science.” He also didn’t need to know that it was all the way over at Elk River Junior High where no one had known who Trudy was.

“Haskel put you up to this?” It was a valid assumption since Trudy was recently engaged to Mr. Hendon’s boss, Superintendent Haskel Moody.

“No, sir. This is my own doing,” she answered honestly. “He’s been out of town all week fishing with Leon.”

“Because Trudy, folks are talking, you know?”

“Talking?” Her voice came out all high-pitched and ditzy, but she knew it was true; folks had been talking since 1975. She’d forever be known as the head cheerleader who’d ruined the life of the star quarterback, Jimmie Beaumont.

“You know how it goes,” Mr. Hendon said. “Barbara Beaumont always stirring up gossip.”

“And that’s exactly what it is,” Trudy snapped. But there it was, Haskel Moody’s biggest campaign issue: his own fiancée’s past.

Barbara Beaumont refused to believe that Trudy had nothing to do with Jimmie’s accident, and afterwards, she’d used her weekly column to cast shadows on Trudy’s character.

Now, Barbara was more than happy to help Grady Grigsby, an otherwise hopeless opponent, make quick political pillage of Haskel’s little crisis.

Anything to keep Trudy Abernathy from becoming the first lady of Bailey Springs.

Trudy turned her head left, then right, trying to get a glimpse of her profile in the mirror; she was shocked at how old twenty-four already looked.

That perm would make her look younger. She blew out a sigh, however, realizing how impulsive this phone call to Mr. Hendon was.

What could she really do, anyway? Barbara’s husband, Jerry Don Beaumont owned the newspaper, so there was no stopping Barbara at the end of the day.

This was a ridiculous idea. Furthermore, Trudy was brand new to the whole politics thing; voting was the extent of her partisan participation.

She had no clue about civic issues and certainly knew nothing about being married to a mayor, or whether this idea of hers was even a good one.

She should just stay in the background, keep her mouth shut, and simply let Haskel’s campaign handle this.

She opened her mouth to let them both off the hook, to tell Mr. Hendon to never mind, but before she could say anything, Principal Hendon said, “You know, Trudy? Maybe that Jimmie Beaumont stuff is all water under the bridge?”

Trudy bristled at Mr. Hendon’s poor choice of metaphor, given the way Jimmie had died, but she was encouraged by the opening. “I should hope so, sir.” She bit her bottom lip.

“Welp.” The principal groaned out a weighty breath, and Trudy could tell he knew better than to say what he was about to say. “You wanna tell Haskel or should I?”

“Tell Haskel what, sir?”

“That you’re our new chemistry teacher.”

“Really?” Her own elation surprised her; she had to force herself not to jump up and down.

“You’re gonna eat my dussst!” Pete came running in from the backyard, wielding a stick as long as he was tall. He jumped on Trudy’s mother’s seventeen-year-old velvet sofa, a floral relic of green, white, and old gold from the sixties.

“Shhh!” Trudy pressed the receiver into her chest and whispered, “Get off the couch!” Luke Duke’s face was starting to peel from Pete’s T-shirt, the iron-on transfer she’d applied last year nearing the end of its life.

Grass stains taunted her from his jeans, the too-big hand-me-downs from second cousins.

Though at least he wasn’t playing outside in the new clothes she’d bought for him to start kindergarten next week.

“Trudy? You there?”

“Yes sir! I’m here. I’ll tell him tonight, Mr. Hendon,” Trudy said. “And I’ll see you in the morning.” She untangled herself from the telephone cord, scurried back to the kitchen, and hung up before he could change his mind.

She sat at the kitchen table and Pete crawled in her lap, nearly poking her in the eye with the stick. The ache of her too-wide grin consumed her cheeks; she was going to be a teacher ! It was a dream she’d sort of given up on ever since she’d decided to marry Haskel.

She touched Pete’s perfect ears. His perfect cheeks.

How had this perfect creature actually come out of her?

She wondered this constantly whenever she looked at him or touched him.

Or heard him speak; he’d just lost his first tooth and she couldn’t believe how much she adored the way he sort of whistled his s ’s.

She kissed his hair, which was messy and full of dandelion feathers of the exact same color: fire-white blond.

She breathed in the musty scent of little boys playing outside: salt and old clay pots.

“Patch was barkin’ and tryin’ to bite my stick through the fence,” he said. “Miss Gooch can’t let him out cause he runs off chasssing them sssquirrels.”

“ Those squirrels.” Trudy tapped Pete’s nose with her fingertip. “Miss Gooch would be sad if Patch ran off, don’t you reckon?”

“Then she might cry,” Pete noted. “The way you do sssometimes.” The boy searched Trudy’s face for answers to questions he didn’t even know how to ask.

His jade eyes, the exact color of Jimmie’s, were so pure.

Trudy often wondered if he remembered his father.

Pete was barely two when they’d escaped in the middle of the night and moved in with her parents.

Trudy squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head; today was a good day and she wasn’t letting those memories ruin it. “You know, Pete. Sometimes folks cry when they’re happy.”

Pete’s little white eyebrows pinched together. “Why would you cry when you’re happy?” He had so much life ahead of him, didn’t he? Trudy wished that could be true forever.

“Hey, you know what?” she asked. “I’m not sure the doctor gave you enough bones when you were born. We’d better check you out.”

Pete screamed, “Ssstop!” with both delight and agony as Trudy wiggled her fingernails between his ribs.

“Let’s see ... here’s one ... two ... can I find another one? There it is, three!” She nuzzled his neck, kissed him mercilessly as he hung upside down in her lap, breathless with giggles and yelps until she relented. They both had tears pooling in their eyes.

“Would you look at that!” she said, dumbfounded by Pete’s impeccable face, the shape of it, the way it expressed emotion so effortlessly. “We’re laughing and crying at the same time.” Trudy let him go, which always felt like a part of her was being sawed off.

He tossed his stick back outside after Trudy told him that, no, he may not keep it in his closet.

Some things about boys would never make sense, why he needed a stick in the house, for instance.

Haskel would understand, and it reminded Trudy how Pete needed a father, and how, really, her son needed to grow up outside Jimmie’s shadow.

Trudy loved Haskel—she wouldn’t marry him if she didn’t—but at the bottom of the pot, boiled all the way down, there was Trudy and Pete.

And the truth was, she was doing it all—marrying Haskel, offering herself to Mr. Hendon, learning how to be a first lady—for Pete’s perfect face.

Or maybe she was doing it for herself.

She let the idea roll around. A teacher.

She’d be tough—tougher than Miss Thompson ever dreamed—but fair, and she’d certainly never commit adultery, especially not with the Xerox machine repair man.

She’d let her passion for learning be the thing that inspired kids to fall in love with science and excellence.

She simply needed Haskel’s alignment, which she planned to get at dinner tonight, and to show up at the school tomorrow with her book bag, a red pen, and some sensible shoes.