Fourteen
Rilee
Everything was all sensation. Bright blinding lights.
Salty and floral flavors on my tongue. And laughing.
All around me were chuckles and belly laughs, and applause.
All of it washing over me, and around me.
I bathed in it, soaking. And it felt good, relaxing.
Just as the bright lights dimmed and I made out fuzzy shapes, maybe a white two-legged animal moving through trees, I woke up.
The arches of my feet were still and relaxed, and my pillow cradled my neck, as my head just rested.
The weight of my covers lay comfortably over me.
Everything felt so nice I didn’t want to move.
But I did. Turning my head without moving anything else I looked at the clock.
Saturday morning, four minutes before my alarm.
Looking back at the ceiling I closed my eyes again.
Falling back asleep wouldn’t drop me back into wherever I’d been.
I’d also be trading this bliss for the shocking alertness demanded by the alarm.
Instead, I counted my breaths. I didn’t think about the day ahead.
I didn’t think about the man who was strangely absent from that dreamy place.
Maybe that was why it was restful. No Craig.
Nothing to be conflicted about, nothing to disturb my equilibrium, or ask why, or why not.
Or remind me of Dad when I wasn’t looking.
Eventually I rolled over and sat up, beating my alarm without any effort.
As it began its insistent call I flicked it off.
No Craig, I pondered. Part of me was fine with that.
A cool and collected down to business feeling was in his place, and it was refreshing.
If I could hold it together today, stay away from him, that calm could seep into the rest of my life.
Showering and dressing, I went through my checklist for the day.
Notebook, pens, pasta salad for lunch, ID for sign in.
I cut up some fruit and opened a bottle of cold brewed coffee for breakfast. The class was being held at a local middle school, which meant on a Saturday morning there was plenty of parking.
Being at a school other than my own always felt weird.
Like I was trespassing. I reached the front door at the same time as a lanky balding man in a ski jacket.
He opened the door and nodded inside. “Gotta get signed off again.” I vaguely recognized him.
Maybe from a teachers union meeting or a district sports training.
Walking past him inside I shrugged, “It’s one of those things you hope never to need.”
He laughed a tired, not quite awake laugh. “Definitely, if I need this something really bad has happened.”
Signs directed us to a music room of all places.
Long tables had been set up on the tiers.
I was early and only a couple of people had signed in already.
Handing my ID to the proctor I watched as she ran her finger down the roster, passing Craig Green, until she found Rilee Horner.
This had been a stupid idea. The only good part was that he wasn’t Craig Mace.
Anything to avoid the connection between me and him and Jackie was a blessing.
I took a seat near the back of the middle row.
The class filled in over the next ten minutes and predictably the back row filled in first. Craig arrived about six minutes till—not that I was paying close attention.
He wore that same worn brown cloth coat and carried an umbrella by the handle.
One of those tall ones with the metal tip that reached the floor.
Trying to think about the weather I couldn’t recall if it was warm enough to expect rain.
That would definitely have been something the weather would have covered.
Accepting his ID back from the proctor Craig scanned the room pausing when he reached me.
His eyes slid away instead of meeting my gaze, which I tried to keep casual.
I thought he gave a small nod before stepping toward the chairs nearest the doorway.
What did that nod mean? The front row corner was already taken so he stepped up the first tier.
I watched, disinterestedly, as his fingers tightened on the umbrella as he took the step, his other hand on the table.
He pulled a small pad of paper from an inside pocket of his jacket before setting the jacket over the back of the chair.
His green and brown plaid shirt was untucked, and there were tiny lines of purple in the design, a careful subtle design touch.
I was reading way too much into his shirt.
He probably just pulled it out of the hamper.
“We’ll give the late stragglers a few minutes to arrive,” the proctor spoke. “While we do, I’ll go over the schedule for the day.”
My neighbor, a heavy–set balding man with a red face, leaned over and said, “Please tell us the bell schedule.”
Feigning a sympathetic smile, I shrugged back.
Overall, the class was as thrilling as parking lot duty at final bell–boring but detailed, a terrible combination.
But the proctor took the subject seriously and would occasionally throw a school related example in, like a student having a seizure, or a bee sting on a playground.
But mostly it was lecture and PowerPoint slides.
I felt my attention slip off the projection screen and onto the studious man in the second row.
Craig took detailed notes. His pencil moved with each new slide.
Once heads turned when he stood up, struggling to keep his chair from squeaking, but they ignored him when he didn’t go anywhere, and he just stood, quietly stretching a bit. The second time no one took notice.
At the two hour mark the proctor called for a break and most of us stood for a stretch.
A few people walked out into the hall, and even though my coffee was telling me I should find a restroom I didn’t want to walk down past him.
What would I say if he spoke to me? “Hey, nice not talking with you. Glad I didn’t dream about you last night?
” Though the lights, scents and sounds were the same.
The wheezy red-faced man came back with a tube of powdered donuts.
As we got back to business the donut cellophane crinkled and he dribbled powdered sugar across the table.
In contrast, Craig rolled up his sleeves as the room got a touch warmer.
Even a few rows back I could see his forearms flex as he jotted down the description of what to do with a hypothermic individual.
Get them out of the cold. Get them dry. Insulate them, and get something warm inside them.
I was paying attention too. At least with my ears.
From a distance the white spidery scars across the backs of his hands were more distinct.
Like a painting that only reveals itself when stepping into the middle of a room.
He’d talked about the accident briefly. But it must have been incredibly serious to leave a mess like that.
Standing again and quietly shaking out his left leg, his solid hands gripped the back of his chair.
Glancing from the chair to the umbrella leaned against the table I recalled his shuffle down the aisle of Mace and Maize.
A hot embarrassment washed through me. The umbrella wasn’t for rain.
He was using it as a non-obvious cane. Finished with his break, the back of his plaid shirt stretched across his shoulders as he slid back into his chair.
Thick forearms, strong fingers, wide back, stubbly face.
He didn’t just look like a lumber-jack, he was one.
Lingering over his scarred hands I corrected myself, he’d been one.
What did it take to reinvent yourself? Especially when your own body betrayed you?
How much grit and determination to start something new that you hadn’t planned on?
Momentarily, I wanted to run my finger along the white lines on his tanned skin, trace them to see if they could tell me the answers.
Even after months of winter clouds he was still weathered and brown, the scars bright like astrological signs to be read if I could study them long enough.
Around me chairs squeaked unexpectedly. “What’s going on?” I asked powdered-donut guy.
“Lunch,” he grunted.
Everybody was getting up and my morning coffee finally insisted on attention.
In the cover of the crowd I dashed for the door, deftly avoiding Craig.
When I returned the room was almost empty, Craig included.
A slide still displayed a noted 1:15 start time followed by a thirty minute review before the exam.
I ate the pasta salad at my desk and flipped through my notes.
I hadn’t taken nearly as many as I’d thought.
Maybe I was overthinking all of this. If I talked with Craig who here would draw a connection?
As the clock drew closer to one I finished eating and blew a cloud of powdered sugar off the table trying to clean up.
My cheeks were fully distended with air when Mr. Lambert, our nosey janitor, walked in.
Fiona had fingered Mr. Lambert for narcing on Jeremy Hansen and Melony Mickelson.
The sixty-year-old janitor chuckled as he trotted up the stairs toward me.
He had a head of thick silver hair offset by his dark skin, and his clothes were always pressed.
A habit from his time in the marines he reminded the kids repeatedly.
He also knew everything that happened in the halls of the school.
Who wasn’t graduating, who sold drugs, and who was shacking up with whom, teachers and students.
“Nice to know that someone else likes things tidy,” he grinned.
“Not my mess,” I shook my head.