The Book of Lost Friends(104)

My eyes go so indignantly wide, they feel like they’re about to pop out of my head. “Maybe if people understood the history, knew about the lives those stones represent, things like that wouldn’t happen. Maybe they’d even be preventing things like that from happening. Some of my kids have ancestors buried there. Most of them do—”

“They are not your kids.”

Principal Pevoto hooks a finger in his collar, tugs at his tie. He is as red as the volunteer fire truck he mans on weekends. “Miss Silva…”

I blaze forward. I can’t stop myself now that I’ve started. I feel everything, all our plans slipping away. I can’t let it happen. “Or they have ancestors buried next door. Under graves that were left unmarked. In a graveyard that my students are painstakingly working to enter into the computer, so the library can have records of those who lived their lives on that land. As slaves.”

That does it. I have tripped her trigger now. This is the real issue. Goswood Grove. The house. Its contents. The parts of its history that are hard. That are embarrassing. That carry a stigma no one quite knows how to talk about, and tell of an inconvenient heritage that still plays out in Augustine today.

“That is none of your business!” she snorts. “How dare you!”

The sidekick shoots from her chair and stands with her fists balled as if she’s going to take me down.

Principal Pevoto rises, leans halfway across his desk with his fingers braced like spider legs. “All right. That is enough.”

“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Gossett agrees. “I don’t know who you think you are. You have lived here for…what…two months? Three? If the students at this school are ever to rise above their upbringing, become productive members of society, they must do it by leaving the past behind. By being practical. By gaining vocational training in some sort of work they are capable of. Most of them are lucky if they can achieve the functional literacy skills needed to fill out a job application. And how dare you insinuate that our family is uncaring in this regard! We pay more taxes to this school district than anyone. We are the ones who employ these people, who make life in this town possible. Who work with the prisons to give them jobs when they’re released. You were hired to teach English. According to the curriculum. There will be no graveyard program. Mark my words. That graveyard is run by a board, and they will in no way allow this. I will make certain of that.”

She pushes past me, the foot soldier following in her wake. At the door, she pauses to fire off one more volley. “Do your job, Miss Silva. And mind who you’re talking to here, or you’ll be lucky if you still have a job to worry over.”

Principal Pevoto follows with a quick calm-down lecture, telling me everyone stumbles in their first year of teaching. He appreciates my passion, and he can see that I’m building a rapport with the kids. “That’ll pay off,” he promises wearily. “If they like you, they’ll work for you. Just, in the future, stick to the curriculum. Go home, Miss Silva. Take a few days off and come back with your head clear. I’ve called in a sub for your classes.”

I mumble something, the bell rings in the hall, and I wander from the office. Halfway back to my classroom, I stop and stand, shell-shocked. I realize I’m not supposed to go back to my classroom. I’m being sent home in the middle of the school day.

Kids flow past, parting around me in a strange, raucous tide, but I feel as if they’re far away, as if they don’t even touch me, as if I’ve disappeared from the world.

The halls have cleared and the tardy bell sounds before I come to myself and continue toward my classroom. Outside the door, I gather my wits before slipping in to grab my things.

There’s an aide watching my kids, I guess until the sub can arrive. Even so, they fire off questions. Where am I going? What’s wrong with me? Who will take them over to the library?

We’ll see you tomorrow. Right? Right, Miss Pooh?

The aide gives me a sympathetic look and finally starts yelling at them to shut up. I slip away and arrive home and don’t even remember how I got there. The house looks forlorn and empty, and when I open the car door, I hear the phone ring four times, then stop.

I want to run inside, rip it from the cradle, choke it with both hands, and scream into it, “What is wrong with you? Leave me alone!”

The message light is blinking on the answering machine. I touch the button like it’s the sharp end of a knife. Maybe this thing is escalating and now…whoever…is issuing anonymous threats on tape. Why would they bother when they can do their work right out in the open via the school board and Principal Pevoto?

But when the message starts, it’s Nathan. His voice is somber. He apologizes for the delay in getting the messages I left on his machine—he’s at his mother’s in Asheville. The last few days have been both his sister’s birthday and the anniversary of her death. Robin would’ve been thirty-three this year. It’s a tough time for his mom; she ended up in the hospital with blood pressure problems, but everything’s all right now. She’s back home, and a friend has come to spend some time with her.

I dial the phone number and he answers. “Nathan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” I blurt out. I don’t want to heap an additional worry on his shoulders. My job catastrophe and the school board hatchet job seem less consequential when I think of Nathan and his mother, mourning the loss of Robin. The last thing he needs right now is a Gossett fight. I’ll muster other forces. Sarge, the New Century ladies, the parents of my kids. I’ll call the newspaper, start a picket line. What’s happening is wrong.