A Different Blue (17 page)

“I find that if something is really on my mind . . . it tends to come out through my hands. For whatever reason, I couldn't get the story about Joan of Arc out of my head. She appealed to me,” I confessed, slanting a look at Wilson, hoping he didn't think I was trying to butter him up. “She inspired me. Maybe it was how young she was. Or how brave. Maybe it was because she was tough in a time when woman weren't especially valued for their strength. But she wasn't just tough . . . she was . . . good,” I finished timidly. I was afraid everyone would laugh again, knowing that “good” was not something that had ever been applied to me.

The class had grown quiet. The boys who usually slapped my rear and made lewd suggestions were staring at me with confused expressions. Danny Apo, a hot Polynesian kid I'd made out with a time or two, was leaning forward in his chair, his black brows lowered over equally black eyes. He kept looking from me to the sculpture and then back again. The quiet was unnerving, and I looked at Wilson, hoping he would fill it with another question.

“You said carving is seeing what's possible. How did you know where to even start?” He fingered the graceful sway of the wood, running a long finger over Joan's bowed head.

“There was a section of trunk that had a slight curve. Some of the wood had rotted, and when I cut it all away I could see an interesting angle that mimicked that curve. I continued to cut away, creating the arch. To me it looked like a woman's spine . . . like a woman praying.” My eyes shot to Wilson's, wondering if my words brought to mind the night he had discovered me in the darkened hallway. His eyes met mine briefly and then refocused on the sculpture.

“One thing I noticed, when I saw all your work together, was that each piece was very unique – as if the inspiration behind each one was different.”

I nodded. “They all tell a different story.”

“Ahhh. Hear that class?” Wilson grinned widely. “And I didn't even tell Blue to say it. Everyone has a story. Every
thing
has a story. Told you so.”

The class snickered and rolled their eyes, but they were intent on the discussion, and their attention remained with me. A strange feeling came over me as I looked out over the faces of people I had known for many years. People I had known but never known. People I had often ignored and who had ignored me. And I was struck by the thought that they were seeing me for the first time.

“It's all about perspective,” I said hesitantly, giving voice to my sudden revelation. “I don't know what all of you see when you look at this,” I nodded toward my carving. “I can't control what you see or how you interpret what you see any more than I can control what you think of me.”

“That's the beauty of art,” Wilson suggested quietly. “Everyone has their own interpretation.”

I nodded, looking out over the sea of faces. “For me, this sculpture tells the story of Joan of Arc. And in telling her story . . . I guess I tell my own, to some degree.”

“Thank you, Blue,” Wilson murmured, and I crept to my seat, relieved it was over, the heat of so much attention heavy on my skin.

The room was hushed for a heartbeat more, and then my classmates started to clap. The clapping was modest and didn't shake the room in thunderous applause, but for me, it was a moment I won't forget as long as I live.

It turned out that Pemberley was the name of Mr. Darcy's house in Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice
. That was the inside joke. Tiffa had named Wilson's house Pemberley to poke him about his name. It made me like her even more. And my regard for her had nothing to do with the fact that she seemed to love my carvings, though that certainly didn't hurt.

I called the number on the card Wilson gave me and enjoyed ten minutes of effusive praise in very proper English. Tiffa was convinced she could sell everything she had bought up at the cafe and at significantly higher prices. She made me promise to keep carving and promised to have a contract sent over for me to sign. The Sheffield would take a healthy cut of everything sold in their gallery, which would include Tiffa's percentage, but I would get the rest. And if the pieces sold at the prices Tiffa was sure they would sell for, my portion would still be substantially more than I made from them now. And the exposure would be priceless. I had to keep pinching myself through the conversation, but when it was over, I was convinced that, in the struggle to become a different Blue, my fortunes were changing too.

That Friday night, instead of carving, I watched every version of
Pride and Prejudice
I could get my hands on. When Cheryl dragged herself home from work eight hours later, I was still sitting on the couch staring at the television as the credits rolled by. The English accent had made it very easy to substitute Wilson into every depiction of Mr. Darcy. He even had the mournful eyes of the actor who played opposite Keira Knightley. I found myself seeing him in every scene, angry with him, crying for him, half in love with him when it was all said and done.

“What are you watching?” Cheryl grumbled, watching Colin Firth stride across the menu screen over and over again, waiting for me to push play.

“
Pride and Prejudice
,” I clipped, resenting Cheryl's intrusion on my post-Darcy glow.

“For school?”

“No. Just because.”

“You feelin' okay?” Cheryl squinted at me. I guess I couldn't blame her. My preferences usually swung toward
The Transporter
and old
Die Hard
movies.

“I was in the mood for something different,” I said non-commitally.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Cheryl looked doubtfully at the screen. “I never cared for that hoity-toity stuff. Maybe it was because in those days I woulda been the one scrubbin' the pots in the kitchen. Hell, girl. You and I woulda been the girls the Duke chased around the kitchen!” Cheryl chuckled to herself. “Definitely not Duchess material, that's for sure.” Cheryl looked at me. “'Course we're Native, which means we wouldn't have been anywhere near England, would we? They might not have even let us scrub the pots.”

I pointed the remote at the screen and Mr. Darcy disappeared. I pulled my pillow over my face and waited until Cheryl went into her bedroom. She had ruined eight perfect hours of pretending in ten seconds. And even worse, she had to remind me that “I wasn't Duchess material.”

I stomped to my room, mentally defending myself. It was perfectly acceptable to have a crush on a fictional character. Most women did! Cheryl, for all her insistence on giving me a reality check, had a thing for vampires, for hell sake!

But that wasn't the problem, and deep down I was too honest to deny it. It was perfectly fine to have a crush on the fictional Mr. Darcy, but it wasn't acceptable to have a thing for the real one. And I had a thing for my young history teacher. No doubt about it.

Chapter Twelve

The test was positive. I took several more over the next few days, until I could no longer convince myself that all the results were wrong. I was pregnant. At least eight weeks along, by my calculation. I had slept with Mason the night Wilson and I had been stranded at the school, and I'd avoided him since. He had called and texted, but other than a few angry messages on my voicemail, making insinuations about “Adam,” he had stayed away. He probably felt guilty about the picture, but I had really hoped he would move on because I had.

I had moved on, but life had sent me hurtling back. And I was devastated. I missed a week of school, called in sick to work, and slept constantly, unable to face the truth. The nausea that had forced me to face the possibility that I might be in trouble in the first place descended on me with a vengeance, making it easier to wallow and hide. Cheryl was mostly oblivious, but after a week of my not leaving the house, I knew I would have to “recover” or risk having to explain to Cheryl what was wrong with me. I wasn't ready for that conversation yet, so I pulled myself together and went back to school and resumed my normal shifts at the cafe. But the knowledge was like a painful sliver trying to work its way out, constantly there, just under the surface, impossible to escape, impossible to eradicate, and before long, impossible to ignore.

We had been talking about the Spanish inquisition for a week, and the correlation between the inquisition and witch hunts had been Wilson's monologue to start the day.

“We think of witchcraft as a mostly medieval phenomenon, but roughly 100,000 people were tried for witchcraft between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Of those tried, approximately 60,000 were executed. Burned at the stake, more often than not. 75% of those executed were women. Why the disproportionate numbers? Well, woman are more susceptible to the influence of the devil, see.” Wilson's eyebrows quirked as the girls in the class immediately took issue with his statement.

“What?” he threw his hands up in mock protest. “It all started with Adam and Eve, didn't it? At least that was the logic of the church throughout the medieval period and forward. Many of the women who were accused were poor and elderly. Women also worked in the areas of midwivery and healing. They were the ones who cooked and cared for others, so the idea of them cooking up a potion or poison or casting a spell was an easier label to lay on a woman than a man. Men settled things with their fists, but women were less physical and more verbal, perhaps more prone to giving a tongue lashing that might be construed as a witch's curse. I find it interesting that in history all one had to do to discredit a woman was label her a witch. How do we discredit a strong woman today?”

The class stared back at Wilson, not understanding. And then it clicked.

“You label her a bitch,” I offered boldly.

The class gasped, as was customary when someone let a bad word fly. Wilson didn't flinch though. He just looked at me thoughtfully.

“Yes. It's often the very same thing. Let's compare. Throughout history, women have been defined by beauty. Their worth has been tied to their faces, has it not? So as a woman ages and her beauty fades, what happens to her worth?”

The class was following now.

“Her worth would diminish, but what about her freedom? In some ways, a woman who is no longer beautiful, no longer competing for the hand of the richest or most eligible man might have less to lose. A fifty-year-old crone in the 1500's might not be as afraid to speak her mind as a fifteen-year-old girl who feels the pressure to marry and marry well. In that way, the less attractive woman might be more free, more independent, than the beautiful girl.

“Nowadays, women are still judged according to their physical attributes, moreso than men. But times have changed, and women don't necessarily need men to provide for them. Women today have less to lose by speaking their minds, and calling someone a witch is fairly ineffective. So we use the same tactics that were used long ago, just different words. I find it interesting, though, that the label used to discredit a strong, independent woman has only changed my a mere letter.”

The class laughed, and Wilson smiled with us before he moved on.

“Which brings us to our end-of-year project. What label do you wear? Why do you wear it? Many of you are seniors and will be moving out into the larger world. You don't have to continue wearing the label you've worn. Will you choose to drag it along with you and don it in your new circles, or will you choose to shed it and make a new name for yourself?” Wilson looked at the attentive faces surrounding him.