Somewhere Between Luck and Trust

“I’d like to try,” she said. “It would give me something to do while I’m here. When I’m not looking for work,” she added, afraid they would think she was planning to take advantage of them.

“Don’t worry about that right away. There aren’t a lot of job possibilities around here,” Samantha said. “Just use this time to figure things out, if you can. Get yourself settled in. If you want to do some work in the garden because it sounds like fun, please do. We’d better get back. We’ll walk you to the house and get our things.”

As the others chatted, Cristy kept to herself. All day she’d wished for silence and space, but now that they were leaving, she was gripped with fear. What would it be like to live here without company? There were locks on the doors, and a telephone. There was even a television set, although reception was nonexistent, but there was a DVD player.

Still she wasn’t home. She didn’t even know what that meant anymore. For a moment she yearned to be back in the quad surrounded by other prisoners. At least there she had known who she was. And in a perverse way she had known she was safe.

At the house she watched as everyone gathered their things. Harmony, Lottie and Velvet were the first to leave, followed by Georgia. Samantha and Edna lingered longest.

“My number’s right by the phone,” Samantha said. “And everybody else’s numbers are on the wall behind it. You can call any of us anytime, and we’ll be up the mountain as fast as we can get here. But you’re going to be all right. And if you’re not, we’ll find a better place for you.”

Cristy knew she had to sound confident. She managed a smile. “It might feel a little strange at first, but I know I’ll be fine. Thanks for letting me stay.”

Samantha hugged her before Cristy realized what she intended. Being enfolded, even briefly, in somebody else’s arms felt alien. She blinked back tears.

“You call,” Samantha said. “Nobody expects you to be a good soldier. If you need us, call.”

Cristy watched them leave. Samantha and Edna had been gone for almost ten minutes before she went inside.

She locked the door behind her, and turned on the living room lights because the room was beginning to darken. Then she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, where the telephone sat on a small end table, and considered what she was about to do. She’d planned this all afternoon, and as the day dragged on she’d been more and more sure she would make the call. But now that she could, she was hesitant and unsure.

In the end she picked up the phone and dialed the number she had carefully memorized. No one picked up on the other end. Cristy could imagine her cousin’s family enjoying the sunset view from their deck. She remembered doing just that with Berdine two years ago. Before her world disintegrated.

An answering machine picked up, and she waited for her chance to speak. Then she left her message.

“Berdine, this is Cristy. I won’t be coming tomorrow. I’m busy settling in, and I just don’t think it’s a good idea to leave so soon. I’ll call you and set up another time to see Michael. You all have a good night, now.”

She hung up and realized she hadn’t given Berdine her new phone number.

She wasn’t sorry.

Chapter Six

ON MONDAY GEORGIA and three teams of parents and students made rounds of BCAS classrooms to observe and give feedback. She had met with the parent-student teams for six weeks, devising and honing an evaluation form, but the form was a diving platform, and she hoped everyone would dive deeper and search harder for those who were drowning and those who were saving lives.

By the end of a long day, having sat in on as many of the sessions as she could, she was both exhausted and invigorated. Her instincts had been correct. The teams were already proving to be perceptive and thorough. Those teachers willing to listen would gain additional insight on how to become more skilled in the classroom. Those like Jon Farrell, who thought the idea of parents and students instructing the teachers was ridiculous, would, at the very least, learn their opinions might not be a good fit here. If she was lucky they would request a transfer without a sharp nudge from her.

As Georgia headed to her office for the first time since hanging her jacket on the coat rack that morning, Carrie Bywater fell into step beside her. Every time they walked by a classroom, Georgia could hear rain coming in waves beyond the windows—not a gentle spring shower but a sullen winter storm.

“I just wanted you to know I suggested the independent study to Dawson. He said he’d do it if he can study tattoos. He wants to get one.”

“Tattoos, huh? I was hoping for the French Revolution or maybe quantum entanglement theory.”

“I thought about it, and actually, it’s not as bad as it sounds. He can look into things like the history, cultural and anthropological significance, the specific graphic design elements, how tattoos related to fashion through the centuries.” Carrie sounded more enthused as she went. “The health aspects, like HIV infection, ink allergies. Psychological implications. I’m sure he’ll come up with more if he tries. I’m getting together with him tomorrow after school. I’m going to let him know we aren’t talking about a five-page report on the best tattoo parlors in Asheville.”

“Well, if the best way to a student’s mind is through the back door, maybe this time it’s the back door of the tattoo parlor.”

“It’s nice to work with somebody who doesn’t freak out every time we think a little differently.”

Georgia was warmed by the compliment and returned it before Carrie peeled off to head to the teacher’s lounge.

The praise carried her almost to the office. Once there she had to resist slamming the door and barring it with her body for a few moments of privacy.

The secretaries had gone home for the day, but Marianne came out of her office, took one look at Georgia and clucked maternally. “You’ve been gone almost all day, which is too long. Water’s hot. I can make tea, then you should brave the rain and go home.” She nodded to the table with a small coffeepot and an electric kettle.

“Thanks, but I’m just going to clear off the worst of my desk before it implodes and takes the building down with it.”

Marianne’s eyes flicked to something behind Georgia. Georgia turned and saw that a man had entered the office after her.

“May I help?” Marianne said, trying to head him off so Georgia could flee to her office, but the man shook his head and addressed Georgia instead.

“Are you Mrs. Ferguson?”

Georgia felt the long day tugging her down. She was tempted to say no. Sorely tempted.

“I am,” she said instead. “And you are...?”

“Lucas Ramsey.”

She tried to match the last name to a student. He was the right age to be somebody’s father—late forties, early fifties, about her age. His dark hair was turning gray, but not quite there yet. He had eyes of such a deep blue they were startling, and strong features to go with them. He’d dressed for this occasion in a crisply ironed, striped dress shirt and slacks. She liked what she saw and then put that brief flare of attraction swiftly behind her.

“Do you have a son or daughter here?” she asked, as pleasantly as fatigue would allow.

“No, but I’d still like to talk to you about a student. Can you spare a little time now, or would you rather I made an appointment?”

“Which student?”

“Dawson Nedley.”

Had it been anyone else, she would have turned the man over to Marianne, who would have been happy to make the appointment. But Dawson was of such immediate concern that Georgia knew better than to put this off.

“Let’s go in my office,” she said.

She led him there, then stayed on her feet until she could close the door. Her desk was piled so high she knew better than to sit behind it. There was no sense in trying to establish authority with a tower of paper between them.

She motioned him to a love seat in the corner and took the armchair beside it. Outside her windows the sky was gray, and she noted his umbrella was dripping on the carpet. “Before you say anything—I can’t give you information about Dawson, not without his permission and his family’s.”

She was taller than average, but even seated, Lucas Ramsey had to look down at her. “That’s fair enough, but if we need it, they’ll probably give it to you. His mother knew I was coming. And I told Dawson I planned to drop by. It’s no secret.”

“Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”

He flashed a smile that cut straight through her exhaustion. “I’m his neighbor. I think he’s a great kid, maybe even a brilliant kid. But I know he’s not lifting a finger at school. I’d like to help any way I can. He should be college bound.”

She pondered this; she pondered him. She pondered how tired she was and how slowly her brain was processing information.

He seemed to sense the latter. “Long day? You’re clearly wiped.”

“I came in at six, and I’ve been running ever since. I’m not surprised it shows.” She sat back because she was too tired not to. “We ought to do this another time. It sounds important.”

“How about tonight over pizza?”

She stared at him. The invitation had come straight out of left field and still, somehow, seemed exactly right.

He held up his hands, as if to say the request was completely innocent. “Nothing fancy. Pizza, beer if you drink it. And some brainstorming. You don’t have to reveal a thing about how he’s doing. Just help me come up with some way to prop him up a little.” He hesitated and his eyes flicked to her left hand. She wore no wedding ring—hadn’t since a year after Samantha’s father’s death—and he seemed to note that with a glance.

“Of course, the weather’s awful, and somebody’s probably expecting you at home,” he said. “I’m being presumptuous.”

“That’s not it.”

“I hate to see this kid ruin his life.”

She was too tired to be tactful, and too thrown off balance. “Why do you care?”

“I’m new here, but there’s a little place in Weaverville, not that far from my house, that makes everything from scratch. I can tell you the whole story while we eat. Outside this building you’ll feel more like listening.”

He seemed to understand exactly how she was feeling, and he didn’t even know her. For a moment that, coupled with her visceral reaction to Lucas Ramsey, seemed like enough reason to say no. But Dawson’s future was too important to play games with.

“Nobody’s expecting you?” she asked, since he’d brought up the subject.

“I’m more or less a stranger here. I live alone. There’s a stray cat I feed, but he comes by late.”

She thought about the ground they’d covered in a few sentences. Her exhaustion had drifted away, and something like anticipation was filling the void.

“Tell me where, and I’ll meet you there,” she said at last. “Six, seven?”

He got to his feet. “Six. I think you need the pizza transfusion sooner than later. And if this storm continues, you’ll want to get home early.”

She couldn’t help herself. She smiled.

He smiled, too; then he told her where to meet him. In a moment he was gone.

She got up and stretched, aware she was already looking forward to dinner. If she went home now she would have just enough time to shower and change and maybe close her eyes for a few minutes before it was time to go. She decided to skim the top papers on her desk and put them in her briefcase. After pizza tonight she would sift through them so the rest of the stack wouldn’t be so unmanageable tomorrow.

She got her briefcase and began to scoop, then she stopped. Under the first pile she saw the bracelet that Edna had admired on Friday afternoon. It was right where her granddaughter had left it, only an avalanche of white had covered it. Sighing, she went to her doorway. Marianne was getting ready to leave for the day.

“Did a student stop by today looking for a bracelet she left in my office?”

Marianne shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

Georgia thought maybe the attendance or instructional secretaries had intercepted the request. If either of them had checked her desk, they wouldn’t have seen it without disturbing her papers, and who would risk doing that?

“Well, if somebody comes looking tomorrow, I have it,” she said. “We can send it to lost and found if nobody claims it by week’s end.” Lost and found was a jumbled cardboard box in the gym office, and she was hesitant to relegate it there quite yet.

Georgia went back to her desk and picked up the bracelet to drop it in her drawer for safekeeping. It was, as she’d told her granddaughter, a charm bracelet, and not an inexpensive one. It was heavy with charms—gold, not less expensive sterling silver—and the chain was delicate but sturdy, finely crafted.

She gazed at the bracelet thinking about the girl who had lost it and how upset she must feel. She tried to remember who had been in her office the day it had appeared, but she was too tired.

As Edna had said, there were a mixture of charms. Animals. A cat, a horse and something more stylized. She held it closer. The head of a scowling bulldog, but not just any bulldog. This dog wore a familiar cap with the letter G emblazoned on it.

The mascot of the University of Georgia.

For a moment she stood perfectly still, then she reminded herself this was simply a student’s bracelet. Perhaps the owner had a boyfriend at UGA, maybe a brother or sister, or perhaps she was simply hoping the university was her destination after high school.

She opened her drawer to drop it in, but stopped when she noticed an envelope with her name on it right where the bracelet had rested. The envelope must have been under the bracelet all along, or, at least, it might have been. She couldn’t be certain Edna had replaced the bracelet exactly where she had found it.

Frowning, she opened the envelope and took out several sheets of yellowed newspaper folded four times to fit inside. There was no note, nothing included with them. She carefully unfolded the paper and read the headline of the article on top.

Sweatshirt Baby’s Life Still Touch-and-Go.

She stared at the paper a moment, then she refolded it without leafing through the other sheets and carefully placed them inside the envelope again.

She didn’t have to read the top article to know exactly what it would say. No one knew better than she did. Georgia herself had lived the story.

Chapter Seven

ON MONDAY AFTERNOON at the Goddess House, rain fell in great silver sheets that washed the porch floor. The rain would have saturated the glider cushions if Cristy hadn’t dragged them inside an hour before when the wind had picked up. A gloomy morning had changed to sullen, and now, in the late afternoon, to hostile. Through the window she could see trees bending under punishing winds. Even though the sun didn’t officially set until sometime after six, there was no sign the sun remembered.

When it had become clear the storm might be significant, she had hunted for candles and flashlights, since losing power seemed like a good possibility. She had found both, plus an oil lantern filled and ready in case of emergencies. A larger problem was what to do with herself.

Even with electricity the day had inched along like molasses in January. Yesterday she had inventoried the cupboards and refrigerator. Samantha had made sure she knew all the food was to be eaten, and there were a variety of canned and packaged foods as well as fresh vegetables and fruits, frozen hamburger and chicken.

Samantha had left cash, as well. While living and working in Berle, Cristy had saved what she could, but every bit of it was gone now, spent for necessities at the prison canteen, along with the extravagant forty cents a day she had earned working in the kitchen. She didn’t want to use Samantha’s money, but she knew she would have to dip into it until she found some way of earning her own. If nothing else, she had to have gas to make trips to see Michael.

Thinking about Michael had the same effect on her spirits as the storm.

She could have gone to see the baby yesterday, as planned. Her son was already four months old, older than Harmony’s Lottie. Berdine had sent photos while she was in prison, but Cristy had only glanced at them, not willing to look closely. What hair he had seemed to be an indeterminate color. His face wasn’t shaped like hers, and his eyes were brown, like the Reverend Roger Haviland’s.

And Jackson’s.

If she waited too long to visit, Michael might be frightened to let her hold him. She knew babies often developed something called stranger anxiety. She had paid attention in Samantha’s class, although being there hadn’t been her choice. But she was used to listening, used to paying attention to everything that was said to her and around her. She remembered almost everything she heard, and most of the time she could recite whole conversations verbatim.

Not that having that talent had done her much good on written exams.

She was out of prison now. She had paid her so-called debt to the citizens of the great state of North Carolina, but she was still the loser she had always been, only this time, she was a loser with a baby she was afraid to see.

This morning she had cleaned the house from top to bottom, although there had been little to sweep or wipe away. Then after lunch she’d tried to watch a DVD, but she hadn’t been able to concentrate. Now she tried to nap to soft music from the CD player, but when she found she couldn’t, she leafed through a couple of fashion magazines from a neat pile on an end table. The clothes looked as if they belonged to women from a different planet. After prison’s blues and pale greens, the variety, the colors, were overwhelming, and she was sure the prices were, as well.

In a cabinet in the living room she found a stack of jigsaw puzzles and pulled out what looked like the hardest. She wondered if all the pieces were in the box, then wondered why she cared.

She hoped tomorrow would be sunny. She might not feel comfortable outdoors by herself, but she had to learn to be. She would make herself take a walk, make herself take her car from the barn and park it below the house.

She had to get out. She had to try. But for whom? For what?

Right now a real life seemed as unattainable as a pardon. She had no high school diploma, no skills except floral design, no money except what a kind young woman had given her. She would scour the immediate area for a job, but even if such a thing existed, she was still an ex-con, a felon who had tried to steal a diamond ring. What business would feel confident allowing her to operate a cash register or work on a sales floor?

And so many jobs were beyond her skills, anyway.

She dumped the puzzle on a small table by the living room window and began to turn over the pieces so she could see what she had. Outside the wind howled and the sky grew darker, until lightning briefly illuminated the landscape. She rose to retrieve one of the flashlights, just in case, and to turn off the CD player and unplug it. Then she settled herself again with the flashlight at her fingertips.

She found the straight-edged border pieces and set them around the perimeter, and easily found the four corners, which seemed like a good sign. After she’d hooked half a dozen pieces together, she got up to make some tea, adding just a little milk so the carton in the refrigerator would last longer. Back at the table she glanced outside. She froze when she saw a figure silhouetted against the tree at the base of the path up to the house. She blinked in disbelief and stared harder into the storm, but now she couldn’t make out a thing.

Nobody would be outside in this weather, at least nobody with any working brain cells. She held her breath and waited for the next flash of lightning, but when it finally came, nothing looked out of the ordinary. She told herself she just wasn’t comfortable in the house, that her first days here had taken a toll and she hadn’t yet slept well. She seated herself and began to move puzzle pieces back and forth.

Until somebody banged on the front door.

Her heart thundered, and she leaped to her feet. Frantically she tried to think of something to do. Before she could, the door opened and a figure in black slipped inside.

The door closed behind him, and a familiar male voice cut through the silence. “They didn’t teach you anything in prison? Don’t you know better than to leave a door unlocked when you’re in the middle of nowhere, Baby Duck?”

Cristy didn’t speak. She didn’t even chide herself for forgetting to lock the door after dragging the cushions inside. For once in her life there was no time to remind herself she was worthless. She was too busy figuring out how best to survive this encounter.

“Now, is that any way to greet me?” Jackson Ford stripped off a dark hooded jacket, then he stamped his boot-clad feet, as if to shake off the worst of the rain.

She made herself speak and hoped she could sound as calm as her words. “Isn’t there usually a pause between knocking on a door and trying the doorknob?”

“I figured if you didn’t want a visitor, you would be locked up tight. You have to be careful of the messages you send. Didn’t your mommy and daddy teach you that?”

He stepped out of the doorway and into the glow of a floor lamp. His black hair was slightly longer than she remembered, but not unkempt. Of course that made sense, since Jackson paid close attention to the way he looked. The stubble on his cheeks was carefully trimmed to appear rugged but neat, and he was tan enough to look as though he spent time tramping through the woods or casting flies in a mountain stream. He wasn’t thin, but there wasn’t any useless padding, either. Jackson started every morning with fifty push-ups, and even though he had only lasted one season on an Atlanta Braves farm team, he was still the star pitcher in an amateur baseball league.

He was strong and quick and, if he wanted to, he could hurt and even kill her without breaking a sweat.

“I’d like you to leave,” she said. “The unlocked door was a mistake, not an invitation.”

“Oh, I will. Maybe not right away, but I can take a hint. First tell me how you’re doing? I came all this way through that storm just to find out.”

She didn’t challenge him. She knew how foolish that would be. “How did you find me?”

He laughed a little, almost fondly. “Cristy, come on, I could find you anywhere. Streets of Shanghai, some Aborigine’s cave in the outback. Makes no difference.”

Jackson looked as though he was enjoying himself. She was sure he knew how unstrung she was by his sudden appearance, and she also knew any outward reaction would make him that much happier.

“I’m settling in,” she said.

“Are you planning to move back to Berle eventually? Come back to the old hometown where you were so well liked?”

“I don’t have any plans to move back, no.”

“And the baby? He’s doing all right with your cousin?”

Jackson knew everything, and he was here to make that clear. Where she lived. Where their son lived. Who was taking care of him.

She steeled herself. “He’s doing fine. You met my cousin’s husband. You know Wayne’ll make sure the baby’s got everything he needs.”

“A good choice, I’d say. Considering you had so few, what with you going to prison for all those months. Were you glad it was a boy?”

She shrugged.

“Michael—that’s a good name. You have my vote on that one.”

She took a deep, shaky breath. “You should go, Jackson. The storm’s only going to get worse, and you know how treacherous mountain roads can be.”

“Oh, I’m in no hurry. I’ve been driving roads like these my whole life.”

He moved closer as he spoke. She was glad the table was between them, except that she knew it wouldn’t help if Jackson lunged.

“What do you really want?” She was surprised there was only the faintest tremor in her voice. “You know if you try anything, you’ll be the first person they suspect. Everybody knows our history. Even you can’t cover up everything you do like it never happened.”