The Good Daughter (19 page)

He was leaving. Heading out now that he’d been the big man and taught his woman who was boss.

The edge of Jude’s mouth flattened as he stood in the dark on his sagging front porch, watching Howard climb behind the wheel and back his gleaming gray Lincoln from the driveway into the street.

Jude waited until the red taillights of the car disappeared down the street before heading over to the Dempseys’ and knocking on the front door.

He heard muffled voices and crying but no one answered.

He knocked again. Waited. “It’s Jude,” he said through the door. “Is everything all right? Is there anything I can do?”

No one came to the door. But then, knowing what he knew, he hadn’t really expected anyone to.

He returned to his house, found a sheet of paper, and scribbled:
If you need anything call me.
He added his name and phone number and then slid the piece of paper under his neighbor’s door.

Back at his house, he threw himself down on his couch and pressed a fist to his forehead, hating himself for not busting in and punching Dempsey out. Dempsey deserved to hurt. Deserved to bleed. Unfortunately, Jude couldn’t be the one to do it. Not until he’d taken care of a few other people first.

W
ednesday morning Kit sat in a chair at the back of the classroom waiting for the next group to assemble at the front to perform their assigned scene from
Twelfth Night.
According to her assignment sheet, Delilah and Kendra were next up.

“Delilah and Kendra, are you ready?” she asked, prodding them to action, even as she glanced down at the one-page printout of the girls’ assignment. In this scene the beautiful, popular Kendra would play the lovely, aristocratic Olivia and Delilah would play Viola, who was pretending to be Cesario, Duke Orsino’s servant.

Kit was fully aware that this had not been a popular pairing. Kendra had not wanted to be assigned to Delilah, preferring to be paired with one of her cheerleader friends, but Kit hadn’t been swayed. She knew that Kendra wouldn’t blow off the assignment and she wanted to see what Delilah would, or could, do.

The girls took their places at the front of the room and Kit was pleased to see that they were both in costume, Kendra in an emerald gown with her brown hair piled high, and Delilah in tweed
trousers and a men’s white dress shirt and brown vest, her hair hidden beneath a jaunty cap.

Delilah, as Viola, started the scene. “The honorable lady of the house, which is she?”

Kendra, channeling an arrogant, albeit exquisite, Olivia, stepped forward, fanning herself with a pink Japanese fan she’d pulled from her sleeve. “Speak to me,” she said imperiously. “I shall answer for her. Your will?”

And they were off, reciting lines with ease, holding the class spellbound. Kit was spellbound, too. While Kendra was playing to type as Olivia, Delilah was a revelation, transforming from a silent, hostile teenager into the perfect Viola, charming and yet vulnerable. Even more impressive was that she had memorized the scene, and never once referred to the script clutched in her hand. Kendra and Delilah’s familiarity with the lines allowed them to nail Shakespeare’s banter. It was beyond good, it was brilliant, and Kit sat on the edge of her seat as the scene came to a close with Olivia telling Viola to tell the duke that she could never love him, and Viola responding with some of Kit’s favorite lines in the play:

And then Viola was to have exited. It’s what Shakespeare wrote.
Exit.
But in a surprise staging move, she leaned forward and kissed Kendra. On the lips.

Kendra froze, horrified, then abruptly came to life with a scream.

The kiss, clearly, hadn’t been rehearsed. Someone in the back of the room whistled. Someone else made a catcall.

Kit was on her feet, clapping her hands, taking control. “Okay,
enough drama for the day,” she said, moving to the front of the room.

Kendra was unraveling, though. “Why did you do that?” she shouted, red-faced in her emerald gown. “What’s wrong with you? What kind of freak are you?”

Delilah shrugged. Her jaunty cap had been knocked off and her pale skin appeared almost translucent. “The kind that likes kissing girls.”

“You’re a lesbo?” Kendra’s voice spiraled.

The class laughed.

Kendra slapped Delilah hard.

Adrenaline pumping, Kit stepped between the girls, fearing Delilah would retaliate. “That’s enough,” she said firmly.

Delilah shrugged a thin shoulder, ran the tip of her tongue over her upper lip, and sang,
“I kissed a girl and I liked it.”

It was a perfect Katy Perry imitation and the boys were on their feet, whistling and giving Delilah a standing ovation.

Kendra burst into tears.

The door to Kit’s classroom opened and Mrs. Adams, the short, square, stodgy English teacher next door entered. “I cannot teach over the din, Miss Brennan.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Adams,” Kit answered. “We were just wrapping up our scenes.”

Delilah did a little sexy shimmy and sang,
“It felt so wrong, it felt so right…”

Kendra launched herself at her with a scream.

“Fight, fight, fight!” the boys chanted while the girls were making mewling sounds.

Another teacher popped her head in to say she’d just called for Sister Elena and Ms. Jones.

Sister Elena arrived at a run, her gray veil, white underveil, and gray scapular flying. The fight was over before Sister burst into the room, but Kit knew the damage was done. Sister didn’t tolerate
fighting at Memorial, and the punishment was always swift and severe—immediate suspension, if not expulsion.

Still breathless, Sister turned to one of the girls in the front row and demanded a brief explanation of what had just happened.

The girl, Merrie Garnier, was a cheerleader and close friend of Kendra’s. “Delilah kissed Kendra,” she said with a sniff. “Kendra started crying and might have hit Delilah, not sure, and then Delilah dragged her to the ground.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” Kit interjected crisply. “But there was an argument—”

“After the kiss,” Damien shouted from the back of the room. “So Kendra slapped Delilah silly.”

Sister Elena’s gaze swept from Damien in the back row, over the class, and settled on Kendra and Delilah at the front. “One more time. Who hit who?”

Kit took a deep breath. “Kendra hit Delilah.”

Sister’s forehead furrowed deeply. “Kendra, is this true?”

Kendra’s cheeks were splotchy. “She
kissed
me, Sister! And with some tongue, too!”

“Stop exaggerating. There was no tongue,” Delilah said.

Sister Elena turned to look at Delilah, her expression forbidding. “Did you kiss her?”

Delilah rolled her eyes. “It was just a little kiss.”

Sister’s lips compressed. “Miss Brennan, when the bell rings you will escort Miss Hartnel to her locker, where she will clear out her things and then I will see both of you in my office.”

Sister Elena swept out with a weeping Kendra, and as the door closed behind them, Kit slowly turned to face her class, avoiding Delilah’s gaze.

“Are you going to be fired, Miss Brennan?” Damien called from the back row.

“No, Damien, I’m sorry. I will be back tomorrow.”

“And what about Delilah?” he persisted. “Will Sister expel her?”

Kit’s stomach heaved. She couldn’t go there, couldn’t think of that now. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Mr. Franco.”

And then the bell rang. Thank God.

K
it’s heart pounded as everyone filed out. If she was walking Delilah to her locker to empty it out, it meant that the girl was done. Gone. Kit couldn’t even imagine how Michael would respond to the news.

She glanced at Delilah where she still stood at the front of the room. She hadn’t moved from the spot where she and Kendra had performed. Kit’s gaze rested on the red handprint still evident on her cheek.

“Why did you do that?” Kit whispered, sinking down on the stool next to her overhead projector. “Why in God’s name would you kiss her?”

Delilah’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Wanted to taste her cherry ChapStick,” she said dully.

For a moment Kit couldn’t breathe. Her heart hurt. Her head was pounding. She hated to think that Delilah was already gone and she hadn’t even been at the school for two full weeks. “You know you’re in trouble, don’t you?”

Delilah shrugged. “Not the first time,” she said, her voice wobbling, betraying her. “Won’t be the last.”

S
ister Elena was still closeted with Kendra, getting her version of the story, when Kit and Delilah arrived at her office. The two of them waited silently, sitting two chairs apart, until Sister’s door opened and Kendra emerged, her nose high in the air.

Sister called Kit in and motioned for her to close the door. “Kendra told me what happened,” the principal said, “but I’d like to hear your version.”

Kit swiftly recounted the events, neither embellishing nor editing details.

When she’d finished, Sister’s eyebrows rose. “This is very serious.”

“Delilah was just goofing around,” Kit answered.

“It’s sexual harassment.”

“She was trying to get attention.”

“She has it, and she’s not going to like it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You know the consequences for sexual harassment.”

Kit sat down in the chair opposite her principal, hands clasped in her lap. “Please don’t expel her. She’s still settling in here and I know she’s having some adjustment problems, but, Sister, Delilah needs us. She needs Memorial. I can’t explain it, but this is where she should be. This is where she needs to be.”

“Ms. Jones has had problems with her. I’ve checked her grades. She’s not passing anything—”

“It’s so early, Sister. She’s only been here eight days—”

“Only eight days and this kind of trouble. Exactly my point, Miss Brennan.”

“I know, but if you’d seen her perform her scene with Kendra this morning, you would have been amazed. She came in costume—most kids didn’t even bother to dress up. She knew her lines, by
heart,
and she’s the only one who memorized them. She wasn’t just good. She was brilliant.”

“I can’t permit this kind of conduct at my school.”

“I agree, but—”

“I must hold all the kids to the same standards.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t a real kiss—”

“Not a real kiss?” Sister’s eyebrows lifted. “Did lips not touch, Miss Brennan?”

Kit blushed. “No, they touched.”

Kit’s principal studied her. “You’re fighting hard for her, Miss Brennan.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“But you always fight hard for your students.”

“They’re children, Sister.”

Sister Elena continued to look at her, her lips pursed, her expression speculative.

“But Jesus said, ‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’”

Matthew 19:14. Kit knew the verse well. “She needs us, Sister.”

“And what about Kendra, who was humiliated?”

“She’ll recover.”

“You are playing favorites.”

“I don’t mean to, but think about it—Jesus didn’t treat everyone the same. He gave what people needed. Love, compassion, forgiveness. Kendra’s hurt—her pride’s hurt, she’s embarrassed—but she’ll be fine. We both know that. But Delilah…I don’t know if she’ll be fine if you send her away. I don’t think her home life is all that stable. Her parents have only recently reconciled.”

“So what do I do?”

“Discipline them both. Give them a two-day suspension. The girls return Monday and we all move forward.”

“Fine. I’ll call Kendra’s parents now. You handle Delilah’s.”

“You don’t want to talk to Delilah’s parents?”

“No. I’m not particularly fond of her father. I don’t trust him.”

D
elilah chewed her lip as she sat in the waiting room outside Sister Elena’s office. She could hear just little bits of Miss Brennan’s conversation with Sister Elena but not enough to know what was happening.

The principal’s door finally opened and Miss Brennan emerged,
calm, composed, but her jaw was set. “You need to call your parents and have them come in after school. We’re going to sit down together, the four of us, and discuss what happened today—”

“And am I going to be expelled?” Delilah interrupted.

“We’ll discuss that when your parents are here.”

“And what do I do now?”

“Call your parents, make sure they’re here at three.”

“And then where do I go?”

“You’ll spend the rest of the day here, in Sister’s office. So if you have any homework, or something to read, I’d start it now.”

Miss Brennan walked out and Delilah watched her go, thinking there was no way she’d call her parents. There was no way her mom could come in, not with her brand-new black eye and swollen nose; Delilah was fairly sure that her black eyes and bruises wouldn’t go over big at Memorial what with their emphasis on Christ-like love and family.

There was also no way in hell she’d call Howie. Howie would act like he was the concerned family man in front of Miss Brennan and then beat the shit out of Delilah on the way home.

So what did she do? What could she do? Who could she call?

No one. She had no one. But that’s what Howie wanted. That’s why he moved them from Mineral Wells.

Delilah leaned forward, covered her face with her hands, fought tears. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. And she wasn’t sad for herself, but for Mama, because Mama was trapped. Now that she had married Howie, there was nowhere she could go.

Her eyes burned and burned and then gradually they stopped hurting and she thought of the paper that appeared beneath their door last night.

If you ever need anything…

Jude.

He’d said to call him if they ever needed help. And maybe he didn’t mean Delilah, maybe he only meant Mama, but Delilah
had to protect Mama, and that meant Howie couldn’t know…Howie couldn’t come to school.