Lead Me Home (9 page)

Monica strolled into class the following morning and almost made it to her seat before Shiloh recognized her.

Shiloh strode over to the girl and bent low, to peer into her eyes. “Who are you?”

Monica giggled. “What?”

Her usually mile-high soft afro had been replaced by copper brown straightened hair that flowed past her shoulders to the middle of her small back. She had one side swooped across her forehead for a dramatic bang, and the other tucked behind an ear, which bore a small pearl earring, and she wore a hint of sheer lip gloss. She could pass for the teenage sister of Jada Pinkett Smith, in a taller, but otherwise just as petite, package.

“Wow.”

Shiloh had noted the girl’s beauty when she met her on the first day of class. With this transformation, Monica was stunning. “Who are you? Where is Monica?”

Monica laughed. “Did I look bad before or something? You didn’t like my afro?”

“I loved your afro,” Shiloh said. “It was beautiful and artsy. This is the sophisticated, grown-up version of Miss Monica, I guess. And you look great either way.”

Monica smirked. “Hmm, hmmm. You adults like this straightened hair, corporate look, don’t you? The other is just so much easier to take care of. But I could get used to this.”

Phaedra sidled over. “And especially all of the attention you’re getting from the fine boys, right?” The girls grinned at each other.

“Did you see Trey Holloman checking you out?” Phaedra whispered the question in amazement.

“You’re kidding!” Monica whispered back.

The girls leaned toward each other, and into their conversation, forgetting that Shiloh completed their circle. Though they were oblivious to her presence, Shiloh tried to mask her surprise. This was a first, too. Both girls were lovely, but they had always seemed more focused on their music and their studies than on the routine teenage socializing and romantic drama that often came with it. Maybe they had been interested all along, she surmised, but had used their other interests to mask what they thought they were lacking.

“Girl, you should have listened to your grandmama a long time ago,” Phaedra said. “That straight hair and lip gloss is the truth! Got the men trippin’ over you!”

“Men?” Shiloh raised an eyebrow and folded her arms.

The girls turned toward her, startled that she was still standing there.

“Oh, you know what we meant, Mrs. Griffin. Young men—boys,” Phaedra said.

Shiloh shook her head and walked away. Monica’s grandmother may not know what she had started. That statement-making, but unassuming, afro may have kept sweet little Monica a little more focused. And safe. With the reaction she was getting this morning, she might never go back.

That day, Shiloh struggled to maintain discipline in class for the first time, and it was her favorite student’s fault.

Monica’s new look was the talk of the entire band period, among the girls and the guys. Half the girls were hating on her, while the other half were trying to figure out how she had gone from thick and poofy one day, to straight and sleek the next.

The boys couldn’t focus, notes were being missed, and chatter ensued like never before. If Shiloh weren’t trying to get the group prepared for the upcoming fall recital, their reaction to a simple style change might have been laughable. Instead, she was frustrated.

She rapped on her music stand to silence them, and tried to do so without bringing any more attention to Monica.

“Okay, everyone. We have to pay attention. Let’s get it together!”

They managed to practice three songs, but none were up to par, as far as Shiloh was concerned.

Monica seemed both self-conscious and exhilarated by the stir she had caused. She and Phaedra exchanged glances and giggles the entire period. Shiloh prayed that the inner beauty and sweetness she knew Monica possessed wouldn’t get lost in her new outer fabulousness. But if this look that her grandmother had convinced her to try wowed the summer camp audition judges like her grandmother was hoping, more power to her.

Later that morning, as Shiloh strolled to the teachers’ lounge, she saw Monica in a position she hadn’t witnessed before—staring into
the eyes of a boy, who seemed to be saying just what she wanted to hear. Shiloh fought the urge to walk over and snatch her away, and her reaction surprised her. She was fretting over this girl like an overprotective aunt. What was the big deal? What teenage girl didn’t want to have a high school romance? Many did have them, and Monica wasn’t doing anything inappropriate.

Still, when she saw Monica take the guy’s phone number and walk away with a grin as wide as a half moon, Shiloh knew the rest of the girl’s day, and semester, were going to take on a life of their own. When the boy turned and walked in the opposite direction with a smug grin of his own, Shiloh understood.

He wasn’t just any boy. This was Trey Holloman, Sherman Park’s handsome star quarterback and citywide Student Athlete of the Year. And, according to all of the girls Shiloh had overhead talking, also the school’s most eligible bachelor.

Shiloh was excited for Monica on one hand to see what must be her high school dating dreams come true, but on the other, fearful that a distraction like this might take her way off course. She told herself to relax; her eldest son was dating occasionally, despite his continued interest in Lia from Alabama, and balancing his school work, and so did many other teens in their church. For some reason, she felt extra-protective of Monica, though. Shiloh wasn’t sure if it was because of their twin interest in the flute, because the girl’s mother was deceased and couldn’t monitor and shepherd her, or because she didn’t want Monica’s sweet spirit marred by boy drama and issues of the heart before she was ready.

She made a mental note to call Columbia College Chicago when she returned to her desk and find out how soon they would alert students about their acceptance to the summer music program. If Monica made it in, at least she’d have a reason to focus on that, more so than on Trey Holloman.

Jade showed up for Bible study the next Wednesday, but sat in the back and didn’t say much. The week after that, she didn’t come at all.

Shiloh considered giving her a call the morning after she missed, but what she learned over breakfast—or rather, what Randy discovered as he read the morning paper—stunned her into inaction.

The two oldest boys were teasing Randy for continuing to read the print version of the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
every morning rather than going online like most modern people, when he held up his palm to interrupt them.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said. “Reverend Vic has a beauty queen on his hands again.”

Shiloh paused midstroke in brushing David’s hair and frowned.

“What was that?”

“Jade Devereaux Smith has won the Mrs. Milwaukee pageant and will compete for the Mrs. Wisconsin title and ten thousand dollars in prizes next month, in Fond du Lac.”

Lem and Omari exchanged glances.

“Well, Dad,” Omari said, “she
is
fine.”

Lem nodded and sat back in his chair. He folded his arms and grinned. “I think she can win.”

Shiloh couldn’t believe them, or the news itself. “Maybe that’s why she missed Bible study last night. She’s focused on the beauty pageant scene again. With a busy husband and two young kids? What on earth?”

“Wonder why Vic didn’t give me a heads-up,” Randy said. He folded the newspaper and set it aside. “That couple is something else. Oh well, if that’s what she wants to do, all the best to her, and to their family.”

Shiloh shook her head, and because of the boys’ presence, decided not to utter what she would have otherwise shared with her husband: She could have sworn that Jade’s recently erratic behavior was due to her being pregnant. If she had entered a pageant, that clearly wasn’t the case. Now Shiloh was even more curious, though, about what was going on with Jade. She was too young for a midlife crisis, and young Nicholas was too old for her to just now be suffering from postpartum depression. What gave?

A busy day at school relegated Shiloh’s questions about Jade to the background until dinnertime. When the family gathered around the table that evening, Randy shared that Vic had shrugged off questions about Jade’s pageant preparations, but seemed proud of her victory. Lem turned the conversation to the family’s Thanksgiving plans just as Shiloh placed a peach cobbler on the table for dessert.

“So …,” Lem said, and dipped a healthy spoonful of the cobbler into a dessert bowl, followed by a scoop of French vanilla ice cream. “When were you thinking we’d leave for Alabama this year? Right after school on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, or on Wednesday morning?”

Randy and Shiloh looked at one another. Although Dayna had made the invitation to Florida weeks ago, in the rush of the new school year they had forgotten to tell the kids that plans for Thanksgiving had changed. How was Lem going to take this? He had a serious case of puppy love. Better to break the news now, Shiloh mused, rather than allow him to continue making plans to see Lia in November.

“Lem, we’re doing something different this year,” Shiloh began. “Aunt Dayna and Uncle Warren will be moving into their new house soon, and they’re inviting the family to come to Florida this Thanksgiving.”

“Yes!” David pumped his fist in the air and Raphael replicated the move.

“Disney World, here we come!” Raphael beamed.

Randy shook his head. “Don’t get your hopes up, son. We are going for a quick holiday visit. We may not make it to the theme park this time around. I haven’t ruled out going back for spring break, since we’ll be able to stay with family, but we may only be able to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner and to see the family this time. I’ve got to get back by Saturday, so I can preach on Sunday.”

David and Raphael’s faces fell.

“Can’t someone else preach for you so we can stay longer and go to the park?” Raphael asked. “How about Reverend Victor?”

Randy took a bite of the cobbler Shiloh placed in front of him. “Hmmm, good stuff, babe,” he told her before responding to Raphael. “Raphie, Reverend Vic’s wife will be busy competing in a pageant the week before Thanksgiving. I don’t want to add to his responsibilities.”

Raphael contorted his face into a sour-lemon expression only a pre-adolescent boy could muster when it came to talk of a married mother participating in a pageant.

“I thought that kind of thing was for young people—ladies in their twenties or something,” he said. “How old is Mrs. Smith, and can she do that if she’s married and has kids?”

Shiloh laughed out loud. “Obviously she can,” she said. “For this pageant, you have to be married; it’s the
Mrs.
Wisconsin pageant, so all of the contestants have husbands, and I’m pretty sure that quite a few of them have children.”

This time the practical eighth grader, Omari, chimed in. “What sense does it make to have a Mrs. Whatever pageant? Sounds to me like something for old ladies who think they still got it and need to be pumped up. Is she paying to participate?”

Lem frowned. “Didn’t you just say she was fine? That means she does still have it, dude.”

Omari shrugged. “Why does she have to prove it to everyone else, though? Especially if it’s costing money.”

Randy beamed and bumped fists with Omari. “That’s how you’re supposed to think! What’s the cost here? You, my son, are going to be my millionaire.”

Omari grinned.

Shiloh rolled her eyes. “Ya’ll are something else,” she said. “Enough talk about Sister Jade; we’re bordering on gossip.”

Shiloh didn’t share that she agreed with Omari’s assessment—for some reason Jade must need to feel good about herself. The article in the paper said the winner would receive ten thousand dollars in prizes, including five thousand in cash. Unless Sister Jade was using pageant dresses and shoes she already owned—which Shiloh knew was unlikely—girlfriend might on her own spend up to the cash gift amount getting prepared for the competition.

“Back to what we were originally discussing—our family trip to Florida,” Shiloh said. She turned to Randy for support, but he was scarfing down more cobbler.

“Lem, it’s settled; we’re going to Florida as Dad said, not Alabama,” Shiloh said. “I’m not sure when we’ll visit Atchity, since your grandparents are coming for Thanksgiving and we’ll get to see them at Dayna’s.”

A range of emotions crossed Lem’s face. Shiloh started to respond, but waited, knowing any platitudes she offered right now would rub him wrong. She didn’t know much about this girl Lia, but Shiloh had never seen him this upset. He finally nodded to indicate that he accepted the decision, and ate the rest of his dessert in silence.

Later that evening, when Shiloh was upstairs loading the washer, she heard Lem chatting and laughing, and also the voice of a girl. She paused to listen more carefully. Surely he hadn’t snuck someone into his bedroom …

She tiptoed down the hall and peeked inside his door, which was slightly ajar. Lem’s back was to her, and he was sitting cross-legged on
his bed peering at his computer screen, at a lovely, honey-brown girl with long, spiral-curled hair that fell just below her chin. They weren’t on Skype, but it was obviously a similar program.

She shifted accidentally and the door creaked open, startling Lem. “Mom …”

Shiloh opened the door all the way. Might as well enter now, since she’d been busted. She stepped inside and walked over to his bed, to get a better glimpse of the girl, who must be Lia.

The teenager saw her approaching and waved. “Hi, Mrs. Griffin. How are you?”

Well, now. How polite.

“Well, hello …” Shiloh looked to Lem, not wanting to assume who she was and be completely wrong.

Lem fidgeted with embarrassment, but his home training prevailed. “Uh, Lia, this is my mom; Mom, meet Lia.”

“Hi, Lia. I’ve heard nice things about you. Did you enjoy the summer science program as much as Lem?”

Lia nodded and smiled. “Yes, ma’am. It has made me rethink my whole career path. I’m still going to be an engineer, but now I can make a decision about the best form of engineering to pursue, since I’ve had exposure to all of the options.”

“That’s great, young lady,” Shiloh said. “Keep up the good work.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Griffin. Lemuel just told me that your family won’t be coming to Alabama for Thanksgiving, but I hope to meet you at some other time.”

“Do you have family in Atchity?”

“No, ma’am,” Lia said. “My family lives in a small town near Birmingham, and I attend a magnet school in Birmingham. I enjoyed the summer program at Alabama U, though. I’m applying again next year.”

Shiloh was about to mention that she had attended college in Birmingham and ask more about Lia’s magnet high school, but Lem shifted on his bed—her cue that she had stayed too long.

“Nice to meet you, Lia. Take care.”

She waved goodbye and when she was out of the girl’s line of view, winked at Lem, who blushed. Shiloh closed the door but left it cracked, as it had been before.

So that was Miss Lia, she mused, and headed downstairs to the family room. Not bad at all.