Heart Of Marley (13 page)

“Remember the tree house?” she asked, bringing me back from my own memories. I could hear the lump in her throat.

“How could I forget? You hounded Dad for months to build you one.”

“Remember going out there after he died, but before Mama lost the house?”

I nodded, finding Marley’s hand and grabbing it. “Yeah, I do.”

I felt her body tremble beside me as big, fat rain drops began to fall. “I think it would have been the best tree house on the block.”

“The way Dad doted on you, it would have been a tree
mansion
by the time he was done with it.”

Losing my father was hard enough when I was just eight, but having to be faced with the constant reminders of his life made it even more difficult. The worst was looking out our back window at a tree that he had begun to build a house in for Marley and me. The night that Mama had explained to us that Dad had gone to heaven and wouldn’t be coming back, I remember glancing out there and seeing Marley sitting on the lone wood plank that he had set up as the foundation of the tree house. Nearly every night that we lived in that house, we would go out there and simply lay down and look at the stars.

“This reminds me of that,” I said softly. “Of those nights in the tree house.”

The sound of thunder boomed around us and we remained on that roof, not caring that we were both drenched from the late summer downpour cloaking the town.

“Me, too,” Marley said. “I think that’s why I like coming out here so much. It reminds me of ‘before’. It makes me feel closer to Dad. I always swore I could hear him talking to me in that tree house and, some nights when I’m out here, I can still hear him.”

“What does he say?”

She turned to face me and almost broke into tears. “That he’s proud of you. That he can’t believe how much of him he sees in you. That he’s happy you don’t let anyone or anything influence your decisions. That he’s thankful you’ve never abandoned me. And that he’s glad you finally got the Wrangler you always wanted…but he’s much more impressed with
my
choice of car.”

“Hey, now!” I laughed. “Don’t knock the Jeep! It’s a classic!”

“So is my Mustang!” she said, her teeth beginning to chatter from the rain and wind.

Raising myself off the roof, I pulled her up with me. “Come on, Marley Jane. You can’t be sick for the first day of your senior year of high school. You’re shivering.” I helped her into her window and followed, grabbing a towel out of the bathroom and wrapping it around her before doing the same to me.

Once I was sure that she had warmed up, I turned to head to my own room.

“Hey, Cam?” she said, getting my attention.

“Yeah?” I looked over my shoulder at her.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being my normal.”

T
ODAY
WAS
THE
FIRST
day of school. It felt refreshing to be able to walk through the school campus and see friends. There was something about the socialization that happened in the hallways before class that always grounded me in some sense of normalcy. It was like this no matter where you went to school. And I wanted more of that…ordinary, normal, teenage averageness.

“Marley Jane Bowen!” I heard as I strolled through the halls between first and second period. I turned around and saw two of my fellow Dance Squad girls and good friends standing behind me.

“Carla!” I squealed, wrapping my arms around her and Kristen as if I hadn’t just seen them at the bonfire on Friday. “I can’t believe we haven’t run into each other yet.” I linked arms with them and we must have looked like quite the sight walking through the hall, all of us adhering to the cookie cutter mold…blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, skinny, our plaid uniform skirt hiked up to make it more fashionable and less “church-choir”.

“Where are you off to now?” Kristen asked.

Pulling out my schedule, I wrinkled my nose in obvious displeasure. “Ugh. Cam must have registered me for this one. Governments. He keeps saying that I need to know more about how our government works.”

“I’m in that, too!” Carla responded excitedly. “Isn’t Brianna’s father teaching it? Man, looking at that fine specimen of a man, she has some good genes!”

“Carla!” I said in shock. “He’s, like, four times your age.”

“Ummm… No. He’s forty. We’re only talking about a twenty-two year age difference. That makes him entirely do-able.”

“You’re disturbing sometimes. You do know that, right?” I shook my head and walked down the noisy, crowded hallways with my friends on either arm.

Mr. Monroe, Brianna’s father, is
that
teacher at our school. The one all the girls flirt with or wink at. The one that all the guys would love to grab a beer with when they finally become old enough to drink. From what I know about him, he comes from a very wealthy family in Georgia. He met Brianna’s mother when he moved up here to attend graduate school. He was a teacher’s assistant and she was one of his students. Four months later, they were married. Eight months after that, Brianna was born. Their marriage was a victim of snobbery and stereotypes, and was doomed for failure. Obviously, it was based on lust, and their unhappiness and animosity toward each other has only increased over the years, mostly because the former Mrs. Monroe was angry when Mr. Monroe continued with his education and went on to get his doctorate, instead of simply signing his trust fund over to her.

Their constant bickering has put Brianna in a bit of an awkward spot the past few years. While Mr. Monroe is one of the most beloved teachers, Mr. Grayson, her step-father, is the chairperson of the board of trustees of this school, and pretty much runs the show here. He tried to have Mr. Monroe removed from his teaching position, but the board voted unanimously against it…well, almost unanimously. Rumors circulated about Mr. Monroe smoking pot with a few students, or touching one of his female students in an inappropriate manner. I’m more apt to believe the latter rather than the former, although any touching was probably welcomed and invited.

The bell rang and we bolted down the corridor, not wanting to be late on the first day of school. I was already grounded for playing hooky from church. I didn’t want my aunt to add to that punishment.

“So I saw you sucking face with Doug!” Carla shouted just as Kristen threw open the door to the room and the three of us stumbled in, all eyes turning to us as we made our grand entrance.

“Miss DuBois, Miss Galloway, and Miss Bowen,” Mr. Monroe said, turning away from the dry board and looking at us with his warm hazel eyes. Surveying his tall stature and athletic build, I could see why all the girls would find him attractive. He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. And while I knew he was forty, I didn’t think he looked a day over twenty-five, his features rather young, similar to that of many of the guys I had met when I went to visit college campuses last spring.

“The bell rang already, did it not?”

“It did,” Carla said, throwing her hair over her shoulder and placing her hand on her hip in a flirtatious manner. I almost thought I saw her hike her skirt up even more.

“I’ll allow your tardiness to slide today because it’s the first day, but starting tomorrow, it will result in detention. Do you understand, ladies?”

“Yes, sir,” I responded as my friends pouted, hoping it would win his heart. It didn’t.

“Good. Please find a desk. A seating chart is being circulated at the moment.” His eyes remained glued to me as we all nodded our heads in unison.

Carla and Kristen scrambled in front of me and grabbed the last two remaining desks toward the back of the class. I was relegated to the only desk left…dead center of the front row. The worst desk there was.

Sighing, I made my way to the desk and slid into it, opening my backpack and grabbing a notebook. The classroom remained eerily quiet as I shuffled things around. Finally ready to begin, I looked up and was met with hazel eyes once more.

“Miss Bowen, a little modesty in your choice of tops may go a long way in the future. Or do I have to report you for taking liberties with the school dress code?”

I immediately placed my hand over my chest, noticing the neckline of my loose t-shirt had dropped dramatically. While we did have to wear a uniform, we were allowed to wear our choice of white top. Apparently, my choice today was a little too revealing. My face flushing red in embarrassment, I readjusted my shirt so that it was more, in his words, modest.

“No, sir.”

His lips turned into a strange smile. “Good girl.” He looked at me with a disquieting gaze and I shifted in my desk, hating the attention I was getting. Opening my notebook, I avoided his eyes and began writing the date on the first blank page I came across, making a mental note to begin to dress in a way that would no longer bring attention to myself.

The forty-eight minute class dragged on mercilessly as my mind wandered to everything…ditching church the other day, driving to Charleston and seeing Buck in the market, going to our secret spot and falling asleep in Doug’s arms, waking up screaming from another nightmare, looking at the confused expression on Doug’s face, and telling my pastor uncle that there was no God.

I began to feel guilty for saying those words to him. How would I feel if my own family thought that my profession was worthless?

Granted, I didn’t really have a profession. I didn’t think folding t-shirts and hanging clothes in a boutique clothing store really counted as one…at least not to me. That wasn’t what I saw myself doing in the long run. I guess that had always been my problem. I didn’t know where I saw myself in twenty years. Hell, I didn’t even know where I saw myself in twenty
days
.

Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. I saw myself here, sitting at this desk, finally done with the first of my official obligations as a member of the Jessamine Court. It was less than three weeks until they would make the official announcement and present the twelve of us to the entire town in an elaborate display of sexism at its finest.

“Miss Bowen?” A voice woke me from my thoughts about the spectacle that awaited me at the end of the month.

I looked up from my notepad where I had unknowingly scribbled several expletives around a sketch of a girl dressed in a pageant gown, and was met with a somewhat stern expression on Mr. Monroe’s face. You could hear a pin drop in that classroom.

“Yes?” I squeaked.

“I’m waiting for your answer.”

“Ummm… My answer to what?”

He sighed in an irritated way. “Is this class too boring for you, Miss Bowen? I thought, as your class president, you might take more of an interest in how systems of government work. But alas, in high school, it appears that class office is simply a popularity contest, isn’t it? As long as you have a pretty face and charismatic charm, you’ll win. Isn’t that true?”

Crossing my arms in front of me, I glared at him. “Not necessarily, although it helps, doesn’t it? Look at Bill Clinton. If I was old enough to vote, he would have gotten it based on looks alone.”

Stifled laughs surrounded me and I looked across the aisle at Brenda McLean, winking at the shocked expression on her face.

“That’s precisely why you need to be in this class, Miss Bowen. Over the next several months, all of you people will be turning eighteen. You will now have a say in who you elect and what your government does. You all need to be educated so that you can make a wise decision when you go to vote for the first time.”

He spun around, returning to the dry board. “Now that I finally have Miss Bowen’s undivided attention, perhaps she’ll be so kind as to grace us with an answer to my previous question before we got off topic.”

“Which was?”

I noticed his annoyance with me return. “While you were preoccupied with your little art project there…” he sneered, glancing to my notebook and I quickly covered my sketch with my hand, “we were discussing different systems of government. Our system here in the United States is what, Miss Bowen?”