Sixteen
Winslet
Eight Weeks Later
It was the “er” months. Time for fall. Why did the South not get that?
I pulled my sundress away from my skin as it stuck to it. Just gross. Opening the door to my Beetle, I tossed in my bag full of papers to grade and my laptop into the back seat. When I got home, I was going to take a nice, long soak in cool water and drink a tall glass of sweet iced tea. This week had been one of those I was glad to end.
Not only had a stomach flu hit my room and I had five different kids vomit on their desks, floor, and even my desk—which was, by far, the worst since I had to spend five hundred dollars to replace everything I’d had to throw away after that—but I, too, had suffered from the dang thing on Wednesday. Thankfully, it was a twenty-four-hour thing, and I was back in the classroom on Thursday, only to have two more kids puke before day’s end. My stomach had still been weak that day, and it had made me green there for a bit.
“Winslet!” a familiar male voice called out, and I fought back my groan.
This man was relentless, I swore. Pasting a smile on my face, I turned to face him instead of climbing into my car and cranking up the air conditioner like I desperately wanted to.
“Hey,” I replied as Toby slowed to a jog once he got close to me.
The man had been running in an attempt to stop me. He was a nice guy—really, he was—but there was no interest there for me. Nada. Not even a tiny inkling.
“Hey,” he said, breathing hard and smiling brightly. “I wanted to catch you before you left. The church has the Corn Husk Festival this weekend,” he told me, which I knew.
When he said church , he meant the Baptist church that owned the school we worked at. When they had an event, the entire school was reminded over the intercom daily, papers were sent home in the kids’ binders at least three times that week, and teachers were told via email to mention it to the kids every day before they left to go home in hopes they’d beg their parents to attend.
I nodded my head, struggling with that plastered-on smile I was holding.
It’s hot, Toby. Get on with it.
“Yeah, of course you know.” He chuckled, looking amused. “I was just wondering if you wanted to go. With me,” he added the last part, as if I needed clarification.
All teachers were expected to attend. It was one of those mandatory things. I was hot, tired, and wanted to stop peopling for the day. Coming up with a reason why I could not go with him was proving difficult. He knew I was going. I had no other person to claim I was going with. My thoughts briefly went to Perry, who I would have forced to go with me in the past, but seeing as he was in federal prison, I no longer had that option.
“Uh, sure,” I replied, feeling as if I had finally caved from his determination.
He beamed at me, and I felt slightly guilty. He was nice. It wouldn’t hurt me to spend the day with him. He wasn’t ugly or annoying. I didn’t have to kiss him or anything. I hoped he didn’t try and hold hands and make it weird.
“Great,” he said, sounding surprised. “I’ll pick you up at nine? That sound good?”
The earlier we went, the earlier it was over.
“Sure.”
“Yay,” he said, nodding and grinning so big that it was verging on goofy.
He needed to rein it in a touch.
“Well, I need to go. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him before moving to get into the driver’s seat of my car.
“See you then!” he said with a wave.
I closed my door and returned the wave with a weak smile. Turning on the car, I got the air on and sighed as it hit my face. Tomorrow, I could use that as my chance to turn Toby’s attention to Mary Beth, the fourth-grade teacher who had a major crush on him, which he seemed oblivious to. It would be nice to not feel as if I had to dodge him regularly.
Driving out of the parking lot, I had to wave three more times. First at Betty Joyce, the front-office secretary, who was going to get fired as soon as the board found out she was headed to divorce court because the baby she was pregnant with was not her husband’s. He’d found some naughty texts and demanded a paternity test. Yep. That piece of information she’d decided to share with me two weeks ago, when I walked in on her crying in the teachers’ bathroom.
Holly, who taught first grade, was next. She was standing at Toby’s Mustang, waiting on him, I realized when I waved back at her. She was twenty-eight and unmarried. I’d thought she was dating someone though. Wondered if they’d broken up. Not that I cared.
Then, just before I pulled out onto the street was Dill. He taught middle-school PE and had been married for ten years, although he was only twenty-seven. Knocked his girlfriend up in high school, and seeing as she was the preacher’s daughter, they had gotten married right away. Now, she stayed home with their one-year-old while their nine-, seven-, and four-year-olds all attended MCS. I had Peppy—nickname for Pepper—the seven-year-old in my class this year. I told myself that was why Dill had been going out of his way to talk to me and showing up many times a day in places he had no real reason to be. Like the door of my room during my planning period.
In my first month last year, I’d found that the teachers loved to gossip, and there was little they didn’t know. When school had started last month, Perry had been held in custody until his trial. He got a plea bargain and cut his ten-year sentence to eight—or six and a half on good behavior. Although I didn’t talk about my life with any of my coworkers, nor were any my friends per se, I had feared they’d all know about it somehow. That I would be the one they talked about at the copy machine.
I had even expected to get called in for a meeting with the board once he was sentenced and put in prison, but nothing. No one seemed to acknowledge it or know about it at all. If they did, I would have heard something about it by now.
By some miracle, the money that my brother had deposited into my account hadn’t blown back on me. I had even gone to the police station myself and explained once Perry was in custody. The officer made a call, then came back and informed me that the Feds were aware and the bank had already been alerted, that I had nothing to be concerned about. I argued and showed him my bank account balance and informed him that was not the case. I still had the money in there. In fact, I had the full five thousand, although I had spent over a thousand of it. The officer gave me a smile, as if talking to a child, and basically walked me out the front door, saying that the bank had been reimbursed for the five thousand—even though it was in my account—then told me to drive safe and have a good day. It had been weird.
I still hadn’t touched a dime of it and pretended like it didn’t exist because I didn’t trust that. It had been too easy. For all they knew, I could have been an accomplice. Marley had even been brought in for questioning.
I waited on edge for them to call me, but it never came. He had been sentenced and sent to prison, and here I was, living my life as if my brother hadn’t committed a felony. That I hadn’t been abducted by a gorgeous psycho and held for five days. It all felt like a dream. As if it had never happened. My brother being behind bars, however, reminded me that it had indeed happened. That and the dreams I had at night when my thoughts betrayed me. Oz would be there. Sometimes, we would just talk, but most of the time, it was sexual. I’d always wake up before the orgasm, sweating and twisted in my sheets. They had started the second night after I returned home, but I blamed it on not remembering getting out of his vehicle and going inside to bed. The only other explanation was that Oz had carried me inside, taken off my shoes and shorts, then put me in bed, and, well, as much as I found that impossible to believe, my imagination did not.
My vibrator had been renamed to Oz Jr. because it was Oz I pictured every time I used it. Since I would most likely never see the man again, I had given in and began calling my pleasure toy by its new name. It wasn’t like I would actually do all the things I fantasized about with the man in real life. That black flag of his that waved wildly, for one reason, and the other being that the only time he’d even touched me—other than when he abducted me—was to kill me. I was not in his fantasies. I’d give it to him though—the man could inspire some amazing orgasms.
Slowing down at the turn into my apartment complex, I found a parking spot close to my section. Letting the cold air blow on my face one more time, I shut off the car, then reached to the back for my bag. I slung the strap over my shoulder and took the cup that I drank my morning coffee in on my way to work from the middle holder. Then, I opened the door to the pits of hell. I was so ready for the temperatures to start cooling down again.
I had been lucky enough to get an apartment on the first floor. I was the farthest away from the pool though. I preferred the location anyway. It was already a loud complex with many of the Jackson State students here nine to ten months out of the year. Few were here all year-round, but there were enough to keep the pool area busy.
I was putting back money every month from my paycheck to get a nicer place. Maybe even a small house in one of those cookie-cutter subdivisions where the houses all looked alike but were still cute. If I couldn’t swing that, then I’d move to a nicer apartment complex. I was really glad that I’d refused to let Perry put me in something nicer when he fought me on it several times. I hadn’t wanted to rely on him financially, and boy was that a good thing right now. Since he had decided to go rogue.
My phone rang as I reached the door to my apartment, and I pulled it out to see Marley’s name.
She’d taken Perry’s shocking criminal offense harder than I had. Possibly because she’d had it dumped on her with no preparation. I’d been locked in a basement cell and given the crash course on accepting that my brother had indeed committed a felon. She had no idea that he could be dead right now too. I did. His being in prison was worlds better than him being killed.
“Hey,” I said, holding the phone pressed between my shoulder and ear as I jiggled the key in the lock, then shoved the door open. I stepped inside. “I am feeling missed. A text this morning and at lunch and now a call.”
She laughed, and it was good to hear she wasn’t calling me in tears over Perry again. More so than me, she felt like Perry was her child. He’d been younger when she took us in, and there was also the IQ thing. She had a high one, too, although nothing like Perry’s. Few did. But she had been so amazed with him and his intelligence that she spent a good deal of time getting him in special classes and taking him to and from these things every afternoon. While he was like her son, I was her friend.
“I’m sorry. I just keep thinking about things I want to tell you,” she explained.
I dropped my keys on the bar in the kitchen, then laid my bag on the small two-person table while toeing off my heels.
“I’m listening,” I replied. “Tell me all the things.”
She began telling me about a cookbook that was being published, where two of her recipes would be included, as I went to get a glass and pour myself some sweet tea. I congratulated her, and then she moved on to wanting me to go with her tomorrow to visit Perry. Saturday visiting hours were from eight to three, and it was about an hour drive to the prison.
I knew then this was what the call was really about. I had gone with her last weekend, and I loved my brother, but the anxiety that had come from seeing him there caused me to have a panic attack that evening. He had assured me he was safe, but he had lost weight.
“I have to go to the Corn Husk Festival tomorrow,” I told her, feeling guilty that I was relieved I had an excuse not to go. “It’s mandatory for all teachers,” I added.
Taking my glass of tea, I headed to the bathroom, but paused and opened my pantry to grab a snack. In my haste to get home, I had forgotten to stop by the store and get more Goldfish, which happened to be my favorite snack. Prepared to pick out something else, I scanned the contents, then stilled, confused when I saw the brand-new box of Goldfish. The big box that I liked to get. I hadn’t bought that. Had I? Frowning, I stared at them, not able to remember if they’d been in there this morning when I grabbed my protein bar for breakfast. Had I overlooked them and thought I was out?
“Winzy?” Marley said my name loudly, as if she had been trying several times to get my attention.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. You cut out,” I lied. “What did you say?”
Where had those Goldfish come from?
I stepped back, and my eyes slowly took in the rest of the kitchen and living area.
“What about going on Sunday?” she asked.
“I have a pile of papers to grade,” I said, walking over to the knife block and pulling one out slowly, keeping my back to the wall. I needed to get off the phone. “We can plan for next weekend. Listen, I hear my neighbor, and I need to take her a package that was dropped here by mistake.” That was a lie, but it had happened last week. Just not today.
“Oh, okay. Well, when you have time to figure it out, just text me the day,” she said, sounding slightly let down, but I had an apartment to search and needed to go.
“I will. Love you,” I told her.
“Love you,” she replied.
I ended the call, set my phone down on the counter, then started walking down the tiny excuse for a hallway with my knife held like I was ready to stab someone. Going to the bathroom, I swung the door open, and my eyes did a quick scan but found nothing. Since the shower had a clear door, there was nowhere to hide.
Turning, I went into the bedroom. The only hiding place here would be my sorta walk-in closet. It was small but big enough for someone to stand. My heart hammered in my chest as I jerked open the door, then stabbed nothing. There was no one in there. My shoulders dropped, and I let out a heavy sigh before closing it and scanning my room one more time.
If there were someone hiding in this apartment, would they have stocked my pantry with my favorite snack? No. They would not have. My experience with criminals was that they didn’t care if you ate or not. I was being ridiculous. I must have bought them and forgotten they were there.
That or I had early-onset dementia.
Could you get that at twenty-three? I mused, then decided to run my bathwater.