Pulse of Heroes (4 page)

“Please forgive me. I’m sorry, really.
Please?” She was damn good, because if Samantha didn’t accept such
a heartfelt apology she would be the ‘meany’. Sam rolled her eyes.
Anna jumped up and down and squealed as if she was cheering for a
game, “Yeah Sam! I am your man! Wee!” Everybody was staring at her;
Anna had achieved her not-so-secret goal.

It was late when Samantha's old VW bug pulled
up in front of Michelle's house. Samantha lived only four houses
down on the same street. Michelle's mother was looking through the
kitchen window, her face agitated.

“Michelle, didn't you wear a jacket to school
today?” she asked as Michelle walked through the front door.
Michelle had to think quickly. Was it proper to tell her mom a
white lie rather than the truth?

“Oh, I left it in my locker at school. I
know, I'm just really overwhelmed right now Mom. I forgot.”

That night during dinner, the conversation
seemed usual, the niceties of how was your day, how is school, and
will Toby be bringing his new girlfriend for Thanksgiving. After
dinner, Michelle helped her mom clear the table, and then helped
herself to two pieces of the sweet potato pie. Her parents watched
her gobble both of them down with shock on their faces. “What? I'm
hungry. I didn't have much to eat for lunch.”

Michelle’s mother laughed out loud. “Don't
worry about it. Really, at your age I used to eat half a pie. It's
a growth spurt.”

Her father chuckled. “Well, if Toby was here
there wouldn’t any pie left for any of us anyway, so enjoy.” They
all laughed, but then it got quiet and her parents took on a
serious tone. Michelle was really hoping that it had nothing to do
with her. Luckily it didn't.

A few weeks ago, Michelle's father had found
out behind closed doors that a private school for young adults with
behavioral problems was looking to move into the Napa Valley
region. Originally, the school’s owners had been interested in
relocating to St. Alodia, which was the next town over from
Willow’s Creek, but it seemed that those plans were never going to
come to fruition…

The atmosphere of the area had really changed
since the California Wine Renaissance of the last 15 years.
Although people have been drinking wine around the world for
thousands of years, now suddenly everybody was a wine expert, and
the phenomenon known as the ‘wine snob’ had been born. And nowhere
was this more evident than in the town of St. Alodia. It was all
the new people who had moved into the area. To them the entire
county was seen as uncharted territory, virgin land. But instead of
blending in with the original residents, they started changing
everything about the place to fit their own needs. It was those
citizens that had voiced their strong opposition to idea of the
school from the start. ‘NIMBY’, Not In My Back Yard. Of course, it
didn't hurt that the county supervisor lived in St. Alodia himself.
It was he that suggested that if the school had its heart set on
moving to Napa County, Willow’s Creek would make a far better
choice since the land was still a little more affordable and the
place was much quieter. It wasn't too hard for the school owners to
read between the lines that if they wanted to open a school in St.
Alodia it was going to be a long and expensive uphill battle.
Willow’s Creek’s Mayor Janice Riesely could see the unfairness of
what St. Alodia was doing, but the town had too much financial
clout, even though their population was much smaller. After
numerous meetings, Willow’s Creek had finally agreed to host the
school, but only after they were assured over and over again that
the young adults to be housed there were not a threat, and none of
them had any violent or criminal activity in their background.

That night, Michelle was lying in bed staring
at the ceiling and trying to figure out how she felt about this
latest development. It wasn't going to be just a regular school. It
was a boarding school, meaning that these students would now be her
neighbors. She still couldn't understand if this meant that they
were locked in there like some sort of juvenile prison, or whether
it was a regular boarding school with kids that just needed a
little bit of extra help. After all, there were times in her life
where somebody might have argued that she had exhibited behavioral
problems. Her father assured the family that the kids in the school
did not pose a threat. But in all honesty, he didn’t seem too
convinced himself. Michelle’s feelings about the situation remained
a mystery, because her mind wandered to other important essentials
such as the upcoming Halloween dance and how relieved she was that
it wasn’t a formal dance where she would need a date to attend.
Michelle also thought about Tim, who was now in possession of her
jacket. The guy gave her butterflies in the stomach; should she
approach him tomorrow or maybe the next day? Should she wait for
him to approach her? Was Bethany going to be a problem even though
they haven’t been close friends for years? Eventually, Michelle
started counting the glow-in-the-dark stars that had been glued to
her ceiling for who knows how long. She always counted them at
night, even without meaning to, and just like that she was
asleep.

To Michelle's disappointment, Tim was sick
for the rest of the week with some horrible new flu. She came to
school every day hoping to see him, but he never materialized, and
neither did her jacket. It was cold out, and she was forced to wear
one of Toby's old coats that he had left at home since he hardly
needed any of his winter clothes anymore. Michelle finally told her
mom the truth about the jacket, and her mom didn't understand why
she hadn't just said so from the beginning, but she figured that
was just the way teenage girls were.

Unfortunately for Michelle, Tim never did
give the jacket back to her. Instead, it was inadvertently taken to
the dry cleaners. And when Tim's sister discovered the strange
jacket in her closet, she asked her mom to return it to the
cleaners because they had obviously given her somebody else's
stuff. Eventually, Tim had been forced to explain to his mom who
the jacket belonged to, and she ended up giving it back to
Michelle’s mother one day when they met for a late lunch. That was
the very uneventful story of how the jacket made a round trip back
to Michelle’s closet.

“Keep the School Away!” “Willow’s Creek Sold
Us Out!” “Impeach Supervisor Ziegst!” The cat was out of the bag. A
group of protestors stood outside City Hall, chanting and waving
their signs at everyone who passed by. Michelle and Samantha were
on their way back from school when they saw the commotion. It was
everywhere; the local newspaper was overflowing with editorials and
opinions by everyone and their grandmother with regards to the new
school. The argument even spilled into the local high schools.
Michelle's speech class did a debate where the class was divided
into two sides: those who were for the new school and those who
were against it. Michelle wanted to be on the 'for' side, because
she thought it would be more interesting to try and justify the
school’s right to move into the town, and because everybody else
kept using the same excuses as to why it shouldn't. It just got
boring after a while, and on top of everything else, Michelle
thought that the behavior of the vocal opponents was bad form, and
showed poorly on the entire town. That was not the way a new school
should be welcomed.

“You should have just seen them in class. I
know it was just an exercise, but everything was about passing a
judgment without having all the facts,” Michelle complained.

Samantha was thinking hard. It's not that she
didn't have her own opinion, but the way that she was brought up
was to keep it to herself. It was no wonder she avoided the speech
debate class altogether.

“Well, my mom said that the real reason St.
Alodia didn’t want the school is because the students have shady
backgrounds. They just can’t release that information because
they’re all underage.”

Michelle immediately counter-argued, asking
how would Samantha's mom know anything, when she’s not even on the
Town Council like Michelle’s dad.

Samantha felt a little hurt. “Well, it's just
what she figured out. I mean why else wouldn’t they want them
there? And on top of that, just because my mom's not on the Town
Council doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know other people that know
stuff.” Samantha was right; Michelle was being rude.

“I'm sorry, Sam, you're right. I'm just
really edgy, especially after all the students were accusing those
people of doing horrible things. It started sounding like those
witch trials we studied in history class.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
That was Samantha’s way of making peace and ending the
conversation. And besides, they had more important things to talk
about. Like what time she would be picking Michelle up for the
Halloween Dance.

The first days of November started to
disappear as fast as the dark bruise on Michelle’s forehead. But
the damage wasn’t clearing up fast enough for her. Every time she
looked into the mirror it reminded her of Halloween night and the
car accident. As long as it was there she was worried that her
parents might bring up the subject and she would get her facts
wrong, changing some detail or the chronology of the events, and
eventually her parents would figure out that she wasn’t telling
them the entire truth. Michelle, Samantha and Rachael made a pact
not to tell anybody else about the incident, and to not discuss it
even amongst themselves. They all agreed that since the outcome was
fine, bringing up any negative memories was not going to do anyone
any favor. But no matter how hard Michelle tried to forget about
it, she couldn't escape the episode completely.

Beginning just after Halloween, trucks with
large trailers and heavy machinery started occupying the street
passing in front of Michelle’s home. The rumbling sounds of flatbed
trucks carrying tractors, backhoes, and building materials would
wake her up in the morning and greet her when she came home from
school. One afternoon, instead of going straight home, Samantha and
Michelle decided to follow a cement truck to see where all this
activity would lead them. They drove past both of their houses and
continued on, hoping nobody actually saw them. The road circled
around for almost four miles, eventually ending up at an abandoned
property almost directly on the opposite side of a small wooded
area that was behind both of their backyards.

Back in its days of glory, the property had
been an olive oil processing facility. It was a medium-sized
operation that had been owned by a Portuguese family, but after
World War II the family had packed their belongings and just left.
Interestingly, the prime real estate had never been repurchased. It
just sat there, and where pathways and gardens used to be evident,
nature eventually blurred the outlined edges and took the land
back. One part of the land had been dedicated to growing pine
trees, because besides processing olive oil and walnut oil from the
vast walnut orchards to the south, they also collected and sold
freshly roasted pine nuts. Michelle knew the place pretty well,
because during mushroom time of the year everyone would go picking
the golden yellow fungi that would sprout out at the bases of the
tree trunks after the first rains of the season.

Michelle and Samantha sat in the car looking
at a large sign that said “Danger! Private Property Under
Construction! Do Not Enter!” But as they saw all the activity that
was taking place beyond the chain-link fence, the girls’ curiosity
got the best of them and they decided to step out of the car to get
a closer look. There were green tarps stretched along the fence,
but Michelle found a hole large enough to peek through. Inside, she
saw large slabs of foundation with rebar and large steel framings.
Even to somebody like her who had no experience in the construction
industry, it was quite obvious that whatever structure was being
built there, it was going to be beyond huge.

Later on that evening during dinnertime,
Michelle asked her father if he knew something about the new
construction site. Although she had her own theories of what was
going on there, she was curious to see if she was right. In a
serious tone her dad revealed that her thoughts were correct. “Yes,
that is where the new school is being built.”

Michelle's mother didn't take the news too
favorably. She tried to suppress her emotion, but it was obvious
that it was hard for her to swallow the food that was in her mouth
before commenting flatly, “I'm really surprised that nobody told us
about the construction before it began.”

“Well honey,” said her father, “they didn't
let us know until about a week ago. Didn't I tell you?”

“Well, I guess I forgot about such a
non-event…”

Michelle could sense that this line of
conversation wasn’t going to end anytime soon, so she excused
herself and went upstairs to her room. She called Samantha
immediately. “Samantha! I was right! That’s where the new school is
being built!” Samantha had to think about that for a while before
she let Michelle know that she wasn't sure how she felt about the
school being so close to their homes. After all, all somebody would
have to do would be to cross the narrow woods and climb right into
their backyards. Michelle knew that Samantha was reacting in that
way because that's how her mother would react, and when it came to
her fears, she was just projecting. Samantha's mother was someone
that wore the title of 'Nervous Nelly’ to perfection. But once she
hung up the phone, Michelle started to wonder what the
ramifications would be if she were wrong and those new kids were
more disturbed than anyone in town had been led to believe. Her
mind started churning with all kinds of bad scenarios, and
eventually she got mad at herself because a whole hour had passed
and she was supposed to be doing homework and studying for another
test in Italian.