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Grady looked at me expectantly.
“I’ll give you two back,” I countered.
He shook his head. “I think it should be half. We were both right.”
Truthfully, we were. And his son obviously had the same instincts.
“I gotta get going,” I said as I walked to the front door. “Am I taking Moira today, or are you, Grady Goulash?”
He flipped me off. “That was old in the sixth grade. Why do you insist on continuing to call me by that ridiculous name?”
I grinned.
“Momma called you Grady God last night,” Moira came breezing into the room. “I heard her screaming it.”
Everyone in the room took a few moments to digest those words.
“That’s fucking disgusting.” Johnson gagged as he came shoving shit into his Gun Barrel issued school duffel bag. “I don’t even know what to say to that. I think my brain is broken. How the hell am I supposed to play while you’re talking about doing my mother?”
“She was also talking about Daddy’s wood,” Moira continued as if she hadn’t done enough damage. “That she felt that he was as hard as a Louisville Slugger.”
I bailed. “You can take your own kid to school. Tell her to forget the rest of it while I’m gone, for the love of all that’s holy.”
Grady laughed at my back the entire way out the door.
The slimeball.
After using the trip to school to forget what I’d heard by cranking up the classic rock station on Pandora, I arrived at school and made arrangements with the lawn maintenance man to weed eat around the outfield fence. Went through the rest of my day half-assed, and genuinely worried about what I would find when the end of the day came. I wanted to see if what Johnson had said was true.
Despite my hopes that what he’d said wasn’t correct, Johnson’s words were proven accurate.
Raleigh did look absolutely terrified.
At first, I’d thought that maybe Raleigh was just scared to teach the class.
And, honestly? Maybe she was.
But that wasn’t the root of her fear.
She stayed up at the front of the class and asked questions, always being careful to keep the desk in between her and the classroom.
At first, I couldn’t tell that there was anything wrong, really. At least not until a football player, Darnell, called Raleigh’s name.
“Ms. Crusie?” Darnell called loudly.
Darnell was a big kid. At six feet four inches and two hundred pounds, he was easily the biggest linebacker that we had. He was also about nine inches taller than Raleigh and had a hundred pounds on her.
But, he didn’t use his size to intimidate anyone. In fact, he was one of the sweetest kids I knew, despite him having a knack for tackling other football players.
When Raleigh jumped like she’d been slapped, my eyes narrowed.
“Y-yes, Darnell?” Raleigh asked, her voice quivering.
But it wasn’t her words that had me worried, it was the way she clenched her hands behind her back.
I could see blood running down her hand and dripping to the floor from where she’d clenched her hand so tightly that her fingernails had breached the skin.
“Do you mind if I use the bathroom?” Darnell asked. “I think something I ate for lunch isn’t agreeing with me.”
Raleigh waved to him. “Of course. Take the hall pass.”
Darnell was up and out of the room faster than I’d ever seen him move.
I had to jump back to keep the door from hitting me. Thankfully, the door being left open meant I could hear what was being said in the room better—this time by the students.
“Did you see how far she jumped when he said her name?” a girl asked.
“Yeah,” another girl replied. “I thought this morning she was going to freak when Tracy touched her accidentally.”
Tracy was another football player. His real name was Trace Yancy, Tracy for short. He was also a baseball player and not the biggest guy on the team.
However, what he lacked in size he made up for in character. The kid was a personality, that was for sure.
“Hey, Coach McDuff!”
I winced at Coach Casper’s shouted words.
What was the woman’s malfunction? Couldn’t she just leave me the hell alone while I was spying?
I knew that the loud voice didn’t go unnoticed, either, because not only was Raleigh watching me but so was the entire class.
They were all staring at me expectantly.
Then Raleigh turned around, looking pissed.
But I didn’t miss the glare she’d sent in Coach Casper’s direction before she turned.
Instead of turning to converse with Coach Casper, I waved at her apologetically and walked in through the open classroom door, closing it snugly behind me to ensure that the other woman didn’t get any bright ideas that I wanted to talk.
Once it was closed, I walked up to the corner of my old desk, grabbed a few tissues out of the Kleenex box, and gently placed them in Raleigh’s bleeding hand.
