Argosy Junction (25 page)

It was a foreign world to Lane. She showed her Montana driver’s license, and Matt showed both his license and his pocket diploma from the school and announced they were there to visit Mrs. Hayward. The receptionist shook her head.

“She has classes until one-thirty.”

“Classes in June?” Lane was already surprised that a teacher would be at school in summer, but classes during the summer vacation were more than she could imagine.

“Summer school.” Matt said the words as though they made sense. Seeing her confused face, he laughed. “Some kids fail their classes. They take summer school so they can graduate on time.”

She wanted to question. The idea that a teacher would let a child fail a class at all seemed impossible. However, the idea of making special classes for kids who didn’t apply themselves seemed even more astonishing.

Matt led her down a maze of hallways pointing out classes as he went. “That was the biology lab. I dissected cow eyes and frogs in there. I wasn’t very good at the cow eye, but I did okay on the frog.”

At the corner of the building near the back of the school, a teacher’s clipped voice echoed from an open classroom. The teacher read Spencer’s
Faerie Queene
as naturally as if she told about a sale at Nordstrom’s. Matt led Lane into the room at the back corner, and they slipped into empty desks behind a semi-circle of students who sat listening with half-interest to their teacher’s reading.

It was obvious that she caught their entrance in her peripheral vision, but didn’t pause until the end of the canto. She raised her head and leveled her eyes on Lane, but Matt’s half-wave caught her attention. “Matthew Rushby! This is a treat. Come here, boy!”

Lane watched in delighted amusement as the doting Mrs. Hayward introduced Matt to the class. “He was probably my brightest student ever. Matt learned to read—here, let me show you. Matthew, read the next canto.”

Without hesitation or embarrassment, Matt took the book from her hands and found the place where she’d stopped. He looked up at the room full of students and smiled. “No one would say anything but ‘yes ma’am’ to Mrs. Hayward, eh?”

Grumbling chuckles echoed through the room. With a wink at Lane and settling against the desk in a relaxed pose, Matt read.

So passeth, in the passing of a day,

Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flower

Ne more doth flourish after first decay

That earst was sought to decke both bed and bowre

Of many a Ladie and many a paramowre

Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime

For soone comes age, that will her pride deflower

Gather the Rose of love, whilest yet is time,

Whilest loving thou mayest loved be with equall crime.

Silence hung over the room as Matt gently closed the book and handed it to the elderly woman beaming on him. “You’d never know that he was once the biggest troublemaker I’d ever had in my classroom would you?”

A tough looking punk seated behind the semi-circle snorted. Matt stared lazily at the kid as though mildly amused, but Lane noticed a slight tensing in his arms. She’d seen the same movement when Josiah Gideon had tried to throw her off their property. Hoping to avoid an ugly scene, she stood and made her way through the desks to shake hands with Mrs. Hayward. She slipped her arm through Matt’s laying her hand gently on his taut biceps trying to relax him.

“I’m so glad to meet you. I don’t know how you taught Matt to read like that, but I’d give almost anything to learn myself.”

The snort echoed through the room this time. Matt’s lazy expression didn’t change. Lane felt the muscle under her hand twitch. Mrs. Hayward acted nonplussed, but Lane caught something in her eyes. “Oh Lane, anyone can learn to read well, but Matt just has a gift. You should hear him read Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

“I have.” Giving Matt a roughish look, she winked at the beaming teacher. “The first time I saw Matt, he was in our sheep pasture reading them to the sheep.”

A muttered epithet sent Matt across the room, over the desks and with the punk pinned to his seat. “Don’t ever talk like that in front of ladies again. Ever,” he growled.

“Who’s going to stop me? I’ve heard about you. My brother was in this class with you. I’ve heard about you and the supply closet. I know how you—”

“Enough.” Matt’s voice was low and dangerous sounding. Even Lane realized that the testosterone contest was turning ugly. She didn’t understand why Matt took the boy’s foul scented bait.

“Who’s gonna stop me?”

Matt, without releasing his hand, turned to Mrs. Hayward. Lane watched a look pass between them before Matt jerked the boy from his seat and pushed him out of the classroom. Mrs. Hayward continued her class as though uninterrupted.

“So now, Lane wants to learn how to read with proper expression. Let’s hear you read this poem.”

The teacher, her eyes twinkling as she flipped the pages, handed Lane a book open to Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride”. Lane took a deep breath and began to read. She knew enough not to allow a natural sing-song cadence, but the reading lacked a natural flow that makes hearing poetry truly beautiful.

“…for the country folk to be up and to arm.”

“Very good. It was a credible attempt, really. You didn’t make it sound like a jump-rope ditty. I don’t want to start counting which is better than most can do. Let’s see…Leticia, come up here and read this same passage.”

A beautiful girl of racial obscurity sashayed to the front of the room tugging her minuscule skirt to swing lower on her hips giving the room a perfect view of her pierced navel. Lane shuddered inwardly at the sight, but smiled and handed the book to the gum smacking teen.

Mrs. Hayward handed her a tissue and the gum disappeared. Lane didn’t hear a poem as the girl read. She was transported to a cobble-stoned street in old Boston and overheard the whispering of Paul Revere and his friend Dawes. She protested as Leticia stopped at the same break as she had.

“No! That’s beautiful!”

Mrs. Hayward took the book from her student and handed it back to Lane. “Leticia, what would you tell Lane to try first?”

“You gotta enunciate every word, but don’t pause at the end of each line unless you would if you were just talking to someone. Oh, and this is a conspiracy. Make it sound like it. You gotta get the feel of what is happening and then act it out like you’re on stage.”

“Excellent, Leticia! You may take your seat. Yes, every good reader has a bit of an actor in them. Why don’t you try that section again?”

Matt reentered as Lane was on her fourth try. At the end of the line, Mrs. Hayward nodded her approval. “Excellent, Lane. Now class, we’ve taken up our time with Spencer on Longfellow, but the refresher was important. Go home and read the canto that Matthew read to you and try to get a similar rhythm and cadence as you read. We’ll read it aloud again tomorrow.”

Students filed out of the room giving Matt curious looks as they did. Mrs. Hayward replaced her books with care and precision and didn’t seem to hear the jarring bell that announced the change of classes. “Did Franco give you any trouble, Matthew?”

Lane’s eyes flew to Matt’s face. The same bored expression seemed permanently etched on his features. As he smiled, however, his trademarked charming grin erased any evidence of earlier trouble. “I sent him to the bathroom until the bell rang. I wanted to let him save face.”

“Everything’s alright?”

“We’re going to play some hoops this weekend.”

Mrs. Hayward chuckled lightly. “Lane, welcome to the city. Where you’re from people probably duke it out with fists or pistols or words. Here, a game of basketball settles all scores.”

“How did you know—”

A wise smile answered her before Lane could continue. “I’ve taught in this city for thirty-nine years. I can tell when someone is from out of town.”

Matt snickered. “And maybe the comment about sheep and pastures didn’t help? After all, the last time I looked, you have to drive to New Cheltenham to see a sheep.”

“Oh, are those sheep yours?”

Lane shook her head kicking Matt as he snickered again. “Nope. Afraid not—”

“What a choice of words—”

After another swift kick, this one making Matt grunt in pain, Lane turned her brightest smile on Mrs. Hayward. “I’m from Montana. I met Matt after he stood for four hours in our pasture too terrified to move lest our vicious sheep trample him in a mad stampede.”

“Since when do sheep stampede?”

Giving Matt a self-satisfied expression, she smiled at the amused teacher. “Clearly Matt needed you for biology as well.”

~*~*~*~

Lake Danube buzzed with boats and jet skis. Lane and Matt wandered along the shore, kicking the water as they went. The morning with Mrs. Hayward had given Lane a glimpse into how Matt became the man he was now. They’d driven to Fairbury in a thoughtful silence that seemed to knit their hearts closer than ever. Now as they meandered along the shore of the lake, it was as though they continued their conversation from the night before without interruption. Lane’s hand crept into Matt’s as their eyes met, speaking for the first time since they’d arrived.

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t go to college. Aren’t there scholarships or grants or anything you could have gotten?”

“Lane, it isn’t that easy. It seems like it, but it isn’t. I didn’t even begin to apply myself until my second semester my sophomore year. I never did catch up in math. I’d goofed off too much in Jr. High and the first two years of High School. I graduated with great scores in Lit and some of the other LA classes, but—”

“LA?”

“They called them language arts. You know, writing and grammar and lit and stuff.”

Lane sat on the sand and watched the waves lap the shore. “So you became a welder? How’d you decide to do that?”

“I went to work at the shop as a packer. I liked working there, so I found out who made the most money and then took night classes in welding until I got my certificate. I took it to Brad and asked if there was an opening. I think he was impressed. He asked why I became a welder and I told him because they made more money than everyone else. I guess that was a good enough reason, because he put me on the line.”

Lane wasn’t sure if she should ask her next question. Matt saw the hesitation and nudged her. “Spill it. You’ve got another question. You’re not going to offend me.”

“Okay, but you can’t get mad at me. I’m just curious, not accusing.”

“Yeah…” Matt gave her a sidelong glance and then prompted, “Come on, out with it. I’m not going to be upset about something like this.”

“I just don’t understand why you picked a job based upon how much money you could make at one place. How did you know you’d like it? Would you have made more money somewhere else? Did it need to be all about the money?”

Matt slipped his sandals back on and pulled Lane to her feet. They wandered through the picnic areas to the wooded area behind the summer picnickers. “Lane, not everyone has the luxury of doing what they enjoy most. Some of us have to find a job that will keep us out of the projects and off welfare. We do what we have to do to maintain some dignity.”

“But your parents wouldn’t have kicked you out or anything. You had time to go to a community college and make up for lost time and then do whatever you wanted with your life. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being a welder. I’m not saying that. I just don’t understand the mental process that got you there.”

Under a canopy of tree branches, they walked as Matt tried to explain. “During my senior year, the rent almost doubled on our apartment. Mom worked weekends; Dad took any extra shifts he could. And they barely made it. I know they racked up a lot on their credit cards that year. I helped out Mrs. Hayward and some of her neighbors on Saturdays doing yard work or shoveling snow. I didn’t make much, but it was enough never to have to ask for lunch money or a new jacket when mine got stolen. It paid for my graduation expenses too. When I graduated, I needed a good job and fast.”

Lane shook her head. The difference between her world and his seemed light years apart. Her brothers were encouraged to branch away from just raising sheep if they chose. They knew a job was always there, and they had a livelihood ready to be passed down when her father died, but they weren’t tied to needing a paycheck to survive.

“The biggest disappointment was when I cashed my first paycheck. By the time I bought the next week’s subway ticket, I barely took home five bucks an hour. I kept fifty and gave my parents the other one-fifty something.”

“I thought you were making ten dollars an hour!”

Matt’s rueful expression was one she recognized. She saw the same one every time he spoke of his life in Rockland. “I did. Actually, it was ten-twenty an hour. But taxes, union dues, insurance, and uniform fees took almost half of it.”

“How do people here survive?” Lane’s voice was deeper than ever with pain as she realized the kids she saw that morning would have a similar experience.

“They get married. They find jobs that pay more and work under the table on weekends. They send their kids to subsidized daycare and hope they make it. A lot end up on food stamps and Medic-aid.”

“How’d you get the money for welding school?”

Matt’s silence was unexpected. She glanced at his face and saw something she didn’t know how to identify. Was it anger? Fear? What emotion or memory caused such an unfamiliar look?

“I did what all of us do. I just existed for a while. I spent my fifty bucks on alcohol, pizza, and protection every week. It was usually gone by Wednesday.”

“Protection! You have the mafia down here too?” Lane’s eyes were wide with amazement.

Matt hugged her, whispering in her ear, “I love you, Lane.”

“I’m serious! I had no idea!”

“Not that kind of protection Lane. Not that kind. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of organized crime in the city. I’ve heard that the Japanese and Russian gangs are working for the mob, but I was more worried about getting diseases from my extracurricular activities.”