Thirty-One
Trudy
But Shug wasn’t there.
Trudy couldn’t escape thoughts of him since they’d kissed—the way his eyes closed, how his hand squeezed hers when their lips connected.
The electricity of it lingered in her heart the way a favorite song might long after the cassette had switched sides.
But that kiss lingered in her head, too, the way a bucket of concrete might sit at the bottom of the river.
The weight of keeping a secret from Haskel burdened any lightness.
Memories of how it had turned out the last time she’d fallen for the handsome jock were always close behind dragging her down.
What had she done? Now Shug was too freaked out to even come to the teacher’s lounge that morning.
He was likely feeling guilty himself, likely as unsure as she was about how to handle this, how to end it, what to say when you say, we shouldn’t have done that, and we can’t do that again .
“Everything okay today, Trudy?” Miss Spencer asked.
“What?” Trudy started. “Oh, yeah. I guess . . . I just . . . have y’all noticed how quiet it is in here today?”
At 7:48, the door swung open. Trudy instantly recognized Polo cologne (Emily had given Dub some for Christmas).
Shug had used hair gel and had combed a razor-straight part down the left side, right where his cowlick liked to misbehave.
Had she ever seen him without a baseball cap?
She wasn’t sure but found herself studying all the details of his face.
The dimple in his chin looked deeper than usual; he’d shaved since she’d kissed him the day before.
His white and blue pinstripe Oxford hugged his biceps like it had been tailored for the moment, and—unlike his usual uniform—there was neither a BS nor a bear stitched above the pocket.
Down each leg, his navy slacks held a knife-edge crease, sharp enough to slice toast. His black belt matched the shine of his wingtips—shoes that belonged on a GQ model.
One corner of his mouth turned up, the one on the right, when his eyes landed on Trudy. He reached for his coffee, but Miss Duffy just stood there, her mouth hanging open.
“Oh!” Miss Duffy said. “Sorry, I just ... coffee’s coming.” She spun around to pour.
Miss Hyde cleared her throat. “Who died?” she asked.
“Died?” Shug wrinkled his forehead and pulled a seat out and sat. “Oh, this?” He gestured toward his outfit and laughed uncomfortably. “Homecoming week. You know? And uh, Bear Bryant’s coming. So, I thought I would ... I guess ... step it up?”
“You look very nice.” Trudy hid her grin with a sip of coffee.
Miss Duffy set a steaming mug next to him but didn’t take her usual seat; instead, she backed away slowly and fanned herself with a steno pad full of squiggly shorthand.
“Thanks.” Shug looked around. Miss Hyde coughed. Miss Spencer looked back down at her book.
“Why are y’all being so weird today?” he finally asked.
“Us?” Miss Hyde said. “I guess we weren’t expecting Calvin Klein to show up at school today.”
“Miss Duffy, ain’t you gonna update us on Trapper John, M.D. ? Or carry on how Mr. Hendon’s gonna drive you plumb crazy before we even get to Wednesday?”
“Well, I’m ...” Miss Duffy fiddled with her glasses hanging on the gold chain around her neck. She put them on and then took them back off. “I guess I’m just—”
“Miss Spencer, ain’t you gonna read something from Jane what’s-her-name?”
Miss Spencer shifted. “Sure, Coach Klein.” She smirked and cleared her throat. “I’m happy to share some prose from Austen. You want Persuasion or Sense and Sensibility ?”
“I don’t know; I never understand it anyway.” Shug unfastened the buttons on his cuff and started rolling up his sleeves. The last time Trudy had seen those wrists and forearms, they were reeling in Pete’s fish. His gaze finally met Trudy’s. “Ain’t you gonna tell us something about Pete?”
The ladies all looked at one another and chuckled at the sight of Shug, dapper and flustered.
“Well, Coach Klein. Pete went fishing,” Trudy said. “And he had a wonderful time.”
“You did?” Shug said, his eyebrows shot up. “I mean, he did?”
“Yes,” she said.
Shug sighed heavily. “That’s good.”
“Coach?” Miss Hyde said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No . . . yes! I mean . . .” He tugged at his collar. “Ain’t we gonna talk about Friday’s game?”
Miss Hyde cleared her throat. “Line needs to block the edge this week.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Third and long is gonna kill us.” Shug took a long sip of his coffee.
“Since you brought it up,” Trudy said, and Shug snapped his gaze to her. “The center’s blocking in the wrong direction from the I-formation. And it didn’t help that the full back wasn’t reading the defense in the first place.”
Shug raised his eyebrows.
“Why not run the full back down the middle a couple of times before trying the wing-T dive fake?” Trudy asked. “The whole stadium saw it coming a mile away.”
Shug smiled ever so slightly before he cleared his throat. “Maybe you can stand on the sideline this week.”
“I’d love to,” Trudy said. “Unfortunately, making sure the cheerleaders don’t show too much bloomer keeps me busy.”
For a moment they sat in a lull.
“Welp!” Shug finally said, grabbed his coffee, and nodded toward the door. “That Oregon Trail’s not gonna blaze itself.” He got halfway out before pausing, tossing one last look over his shoulder. “And stop calling me Coach Klein.”
Miss Duffy clutched her chest as if he’d proposed.
“Sure thing, Coach Lauren,” Miss Hyde drawled, barely looking up. The ladies burst into giggles.
“I mean it!” Meechum barked, turning pink. “Y’all are being weird.” He blustered out, coffee sloshing.
“Poor thing,” Miss Hyde said, standing. “Whoever it was that died must have been awful close to him.” The ladies laughed again as she held the door for Miss Spencer who said, “See you at lunch, Trudy?”
“Actually, Gina?” Trudy said. “I was hoping to catch you alone. I’ve got a question for you.”
“Sure. Wanna walk together?”
Trudy scooped up her things. Hopefully, Gina could offer guidance on what to do about June Bug and Carter. “I was wondering,” Trudy started as they headed down the hall. “Have you ever had a student who was in a relationship that he ... or she ... should definitely not be in?”
“I guess so, yeah.”
“And what do you do?” Trudy asked. “I mean, hypothetically speaking of course, if you learned about a student who could seriously mess up ... um ... her life with a boy she’s seeing.”
“Are you sure this is hypothetical?” Miss Spencer revealed her suspicions with a grin.
Trudy shrugged, giving it away that it wasn’t exactly.
“It depends,” Gina said. “Why is the relationship bad for her?”
“Well, first of all,” Trudy said. “One of them is already in a relationship, and everyone in the whole town sort of expects her to stay in that relationship. Except, maybe she’s got feelings for someone else? Someone whom maybe the whole town wouldn’t approve of her seeing? Like, at all.”
Miss Spencer’s smile grew bigger. “Is the boy in this hypothetical Shug Meechum?”
“Shug?” Trudy stopped and turned to face Gina. “Wait! And me? Oh, no! I mean ... I’m engaged. To Haskel Moody. I’m talking about two students .”
The five-minute bell rang and cut their conversation short.
“Good luck, Miss Abernathy,” Miss Spencer laughed as she turned to go teach. Over her shoulder she called, “I’ll see you at lunch!”
“It’s hypothetical!” Trudy called to Miss Spencer’s back.
“Whatever you say, Miss Abernathy.”
For the rest of the day, she managed to avoid running into Shug, not necessarily on purpose but it made her wonder if maybe he was avoiding her .
Spaghetti Day had been last week, so there’d be no reason he would join them at lunch.
She did, however foolishly, still wonder whether he might show up.
If she had only won their bet, he would’ve had to be there, and she could eat lunch quietly in the lounge or go sit outside since the sun was shining.
She wouldn’t have to sit there enduring Miss Spencer’s smirks and less-than-subtle references to Darcy and Elizabeth.
It was after the last bell had rung, ending the school day, though, when her guilt really kicked into high gear.
“Surprise!” Haskel, back from Birmingham, carried a big roll of paper. Plans of some sort, perhaps for Jerry Don’s new mall. He stood in the doorway to her classroom, his face sedate and solemn. “I’m afraid it’s confession time, Trudy.”
Her heart sank. “Confession?” She felt her armpits get moist; her face started blazing. How in the world did he find out? Already?
“One of us is a liar.” Haskel looked impossibly angry.
Oh, God. Trudy blew out a breath. “Haskel . . . um . . .”
“Me!” Haskel burst into laughter. “I’m the liar!”
“You are?”
“I wasn’t in Birmingham for a political meeting.
Ha! I went to get these.” He held up the roll and wrapped his free arm around her waist, pulling her in tight and pecking her on the cheek.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, gazing into her eyes.
He placed his lips on hers and held them there for exactly four seconds.
It felt like her feet were stuck in new cement. Trapped and stuck in her lies. She wanted to shout her confession. In her head she screamed, I’m so sorry, Haskel! I kissed Shug Meechum! Instead, she manufactured her best sultry moan as Haskel’s tongue found its way between her lips.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked, relenting finally.
“Depends on what this is?”
Haskel rolled out the sheets of paper across her desk. Plans. For a house. A big house. “Yours.” Haskel beamed. “Well, I should say, ours .”
Trudy appreciated the fact that she had a place to look, thankful she could keep her eyes on the drawings and away from Haskel’s face, hopefully leaving him with no ability to sense her transgression. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Right here is Pete’s room. Look how big it is.” He pointed. “And right here, our room. It has a view right out over the river. We can wake up every morning and see the water, the steam lifting off it, the sunrise dancing on the ripples.”
Trudy tried to envision it, but everything on the page, all the lines and letters, seemed to vibrate and jump as she tried to make sense of them. “It’s beautiful,” she said, another lie since she really wasn’t seeing anything at all.
“This, right here”—Haskel now stood behind her, his body pressed into her back, one arm around her, the other pointing to a little oval shape surrounded by a rectangle—“a huge bathtub, also with a river view.” He pulled her in a little tighter. “It’s big enough for two.”
She might have imagined it, but she sensed his manhood getting excited and pressing into her buttocks. She kept her guilty eyes on the plans as long as she could, pulling them away at the very last moment as he guided her face to his, lifted her chin toward him, and kissed her again.
“We break ground tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
Haskel giggled. “It’s all in motion. No turning back. I paid the architect in full; paid the deposit for construction too.”
Trudy looked at him and blinked.
Haskel smiled at her, his eyes seemed soft and full of light. “I’ve been keeping all kinds of secrets from you, darling.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Trudy said, her voice shaky. And that was true.
“Just say you love me.”
Trudy rested her ear to his chest, unable to look at his face any longer; she heard the thump-thump of his gracious heart. “I love you,” she said. And that wasn’t completely untrue.