The Book of Lost Friends(43)

Stress hits me with tsunami force, drowning the pull of curiosity, books for the students, and everything else. Arrange for a move in the middle of the school year? Find a rental in a town that has barely anything available, especially at this price? Transfer utilities? I’m instantly overwhelmed.

“It’s not possible for me to keep the house until the end of the school year?”

“Sorry. The commitment has already been made.” His gaze darts off evasively.

I push a palm to my chest to calm the sort of instant panic that always hit the minute my mother announced we were moving again. Having grown up somewhat transient, I’ve become an adult who values the nest. The home space is sacred. It’s the zone where my books and dreams and comfy reading chair live. I need the little clapboard house in the quiet field by the cemetery, where I can walk the paths or the old farm levee lane, breathe and restore and settle my head.

I bite back the sting, stiffen my neck, and say, “I understand. You have to do what you have to do…I guess.”

He winces, but I can see his resolve solidifying, as well.

“So…about the books?” I can at least try to strike that bargain, and I am running out of time to make something good come of this visit.

“The books…” He rubs his forehead. He’s tired of me, or of the situation, or of being asked for things. Probably all three. “The agent has a key to the place. I’ll let her know that it’s all right to give it to you. I’m not sure exactly what you’ll find in there, but the judge was a reader, and aside from that, he could never resist a kid selling encyclopedias, or Reader’s Digest subscriptions, or whatever. The last time I was in that room, stuff was stacked everywhere, and the closets were full of books still in the shipping boxes. Somebody should clean that junk out.”

I am momentarily struck silent. Clean that junk out? What kind of a Neanderthal talks about books that way?

Then I remember. “The real estate agent had a medical issue. She’s out of the office. There’s been a note on the door for well over a week now.”

He frowns, seemingly unaware of that fact. Then he reaches into his pocket, sifts through his key ring, and begins removing a key. He’s exasperated by the time it is finally loosed, and he extends it my way.

“Take any of the books you can use, and by the way, let’s just keep that between us. If you run across Ben Rideout mowing the place, tell him you’re there to sort some things for me. He won’t ask for details.” The hardening of Nathan’s demeanor is swift and definitive, gut level, like my panic over having to move. “Don’t send me lists. I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I don’t want any of it.” He blows past me, and less than a minute later he’s in his truck and gone.

I stand there, drop-jawed, gaping at the bit of patinated brass in my hand. It’s old-fashioned, like a skeleton key, but smaller. Scrollwork adorns the edges, and with its diminutive size, the key almost looks like something that would open a trunk, or a pirate’s chest, or Alice’s tiny entrance to the gardens of Wonderland. Slivers of murky morning sun slide over it, casting strange reflections on my skin. For an instant, I almost make out the shape of a face.

Just as quickly, it’s gone.

Fascination grabs me in an overzealous embrace, sweeps me off my feet, fills me with a greedy, ravenous hunger. It takes everything I have to keep from driving straight to Goswood Grove to see what this key might lead to.

Unfortunately, there’s the matter of dozens of kids expecting me to continue with Animal Farm…and to open the pooperoo storage drawer. With a little cooperation from traffic, I can still get there in time to meet my first-period class and properly start the day.

The Bug and I beat it back across town, dodging Gossett Industries pipe trucks and farmers in pickups. The replacement science teacher is more than pleased to see me when I sneak in the back door. The bell rings less than three minutes later, and kids flood my classroom.

Fortunately, my first-hour students are only seventh graders, so it’s a little easier to intimidate them into taking their seats. Once they can hear me over the din, I tell them that, after we finish talking about adverbs, I’ll read them a bit of Animal Farm, which is a book the high schoolers are using, but I know they can handle anything the freshmen and sophomores can.

They gasp, straighten in their chairs, look surprised. Miss Silva, you seem strangely less defeated today, almost giddy, their expressions say.

If only they knew.

I pull out the supply of pooperoos. “I burned the bottoms a little on this batch. Sorry. But they’re not horrible. You know the rules. No pushing. No shoving. No noise, or I close the box. If you want one, come get one.”

I attempt a half-hearted lesson on adverbs, then abandon the effort and pick up Animal Farm to read to them. Meanwhile, the brass key weighs heavily in my pocket and on my mind. I’m distracted.

I withdraw it between classes, study it in my palm, contemplate all the hands that held it before mine. I study it in the light at different angles, try to re-create the reflection of a face, but nothing materializes.

I finally give up in favor of checking the wall clock every few minutes, willing it to move faster. When the final bell rings, I’m filled with jubilant energy, the only cloud over my day being that LaJuna was absent in fourth hour. She’d been back for three days in the first part of the week, now poof, gone like a whiff of smoke.