Читать книгу Letting Loose - Joanne Skerrett - Страница 16

My life was changing. I was becoming even more of a recluse; shut in by an irrational infatuation. Drew was making it so hard for me to live my life in peace without thinking about him constantly, craving warm weather, hot days under the sun, smoking nights under the sheets.

James and Kelly commented on the amount of time I spent on the phone and the computer, and Kelly one day actually bought me a phone card. “For your own good,” she said. The thought had never occurred to me, but it turned out to be a huge money saver.

I’d become so overwhelmed by this online/phone relationship that I’d forgotten to buy Ma’s groceries one week. She’d called me wailing, saying that I was intentionally trying to starve her to death. “Is that what it’s going to take?” I asked her. She hung up the phone. She doesn’t get my humor sometimes. I’d run out to the Stop & Shop early Sunday morning, dropped off the bags in her living room, and rushed back home to read Drew’s latest e-mail.

Hi, Amelia. It’s about 4:30 A.M. and it’s pitch-black outside. I’m up in the country, where I spend most of my time. I like it out here because it’s quiet, cool, and very beautiful. I think you would like it up here, too. I have a huge jacaranda tree in the back with a hammock under it. It’s great for reading or whatever else one might want to do on a cool afternoon. I came up with the idea for building schools while sitting here one day. I had started to feel restless again and worried that I would never accomplish anything that would change anyone’s life. It’s kind of like what you told me the other day about teaching. That you know you could be doing something else that’s more lucrative or even less stressful, but that you liked the idea that you were doing something that was truly important. I can identify with that. With you. Will you come down on spring break, Amelia? I know you have reservations, but with every day that goes by I become more and more consumed by thoughts of you. I look at your picture and I know that there is so much more I could know if I could just look into your eyes—in real life. I want to touch your hair, smell your skin, hear your voice without the static. I know you’re afraid of what may happen or what may not happen, but I don’t think you need to be. If nothing else, this would be a sunny vacation for you in a great place and you would have made a new friend. I’m awaiting your response.

Drew: I’m up early, too. I couldn’t sleep. I was really wrestling with a lot of things. On the one hand, I could use the vacation. I need to be away from my family and roommates right now. Sometimes I feel that there is absolutely no one in my life who gets where I’m coming from. That was a tangent, by the way. On the other hand, I feel strange flying two thousand miles to meet a man I’ve never met. I feel the same way you do. These days I can’t take a breath without thinking about you. And even with all of that, it still somehow doesn’t feel real. I don’t think it would until I could meet you in person. And that’s so exciting to me. Sometimes I think that it would be the best thing that could ever happen to me, and then other times I worry. What if we don’t hit it off? What if we hate each other? I know. You’ve already answered that question—I would have a great spring break on warm, sunny Dominica. But this life I’m living now, the one with you in the starring role, is so much fun. I almost don’t want to give it up. Do you get what I mean? It’s like the unrealness (Is that a word?) is much more fun than the possibility of real life. But I am thinking about it. Seriously.

Later, as I worked on my lesson plans for the week, I began to picture myself a brave heroine, willing to do anything for love. It had been done before. I tried to find precedent in the literary canon. People who had risked it all for love, or the possibility of love: Romeo, Juliet, Jane Eyre, Madame Bovary, even the tragic Antoinette Cosway from Wide Sargasso Sea…. The results did not look promising. What if I ended up like Antoinette? Crazy, locked in a room somewhere, while Drew went off with some other Jane Eyre…. Was I crazy? If I told my mother any of this she would laugh at me. “You’re going where to meet who?”

Actually, that made the concept a bit more appealing. Maybe then she would finally see that I just may not be here forever, and that it was time for her to start getting her life straight. If I did this, it would be the craziest and bravest thing I’d ever done. Was it worth it? He could be an ax murderer. A kidnapper. Or worse. On the other hand, he could be exactly what he said he was. Remember: Expect great things to happen and they will. Maybe I should ask him to come here, then. Whitney had suggested that. But I wanted to go there—at least to see what it was like in another country. I had no clue what I should do.

Treyon was back in school the next day. He seemed subdued, although he glared at me each time our eyes met. The vacation week was only two weeks away, and the students were restless. They owed me a paper on The Grapes of Wrath and I didn’t want to incite any more hostility. So we talked about Tom Joad and how he would compare with someone they knew in real life. Few hands went up when I asked the question, but then once Tina started talking the whole class got going. Yes, I told her, the Joadses’ struggle can be paralleled to the struggle for racial justice in America, but not just racial, but for all poor people, poor blacks, immigrants, laborers…. I told her that she might want to write her paper on the topic. Her eyes lit up and my heart melted. I’d give her an A just for tackling the topic. Three other kids asked if they could write their three-page paper on the same topic and I told them yes, of course. I felt so…so vindicated. See, I wanted to tell Tina, a book does not have to be by a black author in order for it to relate to your experience. But I decided to just bask in the glow of my kids actually showing that the text had provoked some thought.

I told this to the principal, Mr. Bell, and he seemed impressed. “See, I told you that you wouldn’t regret your decision to come here. Those private schools may be less of a challenge but the rewards are bigger here. You’re doing God’s work now,” he said. I laughed because I thought he was being facetious. But he was dead serious. I cleared my throat. God’s work. Oh, boy. I really needed to take my job more seriously.

“So you all ready for your trip?” Lashelle asked as Mr. Bell walked away.

“Yeah, gonna do some shopping this weekend.” I would have gone shopping anyway.

“Oh, Filene’s Basement is having a big sale on swimsuits. You’re going to the Caribbean, right?”

How do I get away from her?

“Which country again?”

I told her and I felt as if she were quizzing me. As if she suspected that I might be lying and she was retesting to see whether I’d be able to keep my facts straight. She was really getting on my nerves, and her butt seemed even bigger than usual in that tight gray skirt. Didn’t she own a mirror? Or a sense of decency?

“Gotta head home,” I said, and grabbed my bag. I left her standing there.

As I drove home, the temperature dropped. Gosh, it was late March and the weather still would not break! But it had been a good day; I’d gotten my kids to talk, and it seemed that several of them had even read the text. I turned up the heat in the car. Now if this weather would just warm up.