Between Earth and Sky(32)
John took hold of the chalk, imitating Alma’s grip, and drew a squiggly j onto his slate.
Alma patted his arm.
As she stood up and dusted off her skirt, she noticed George’s dark eyes trailing her movements, his jaw set in a scowl. He lounged in his chair like a dandy at a horse race, legs extended full length beneath the desk and crossed at the ankles, arms folded across his chest.
“Do you need help?” she asked, crossing to his desk. Miss Wells had written George in tidy block letters across the top of his slate. The space below, where he was to copy out his name, remained blank.
“It’s easy. Let me show you.” She reached for his chalk, but he nudged it away with his elbow. The thin white stick rolled off his desk onto the floor. Alma frowned and bent to pick it up.
His boot slammed down, just missing her fingers, grinding the chalk into pale dust against the floor.
She looked up, mouth agape. Surely he’d not meant to—He met her stare with a smug grin, his dark eyes sinister and challenging. A string of indecorous words flew to mind, but the clap of Miss Wells’s footsteps in the hallway silenced her.
“Nothing but a furry vermin, as I suspected,” Miss Wells said, entering the classroom. Her gaze settled on Alma. “Is everything all right?”
Alma rose, straightened her shoulders, and smoothed back a ringlet of hair that had fallen across her hot face. She glanced at George. His hateful expression made her shudder. Part of her wanted to tell and watch him work off demerits, but then, that’s what he expected of her, to stand in solidarity with the frightful Miss Wells. “George accidentally dropped his chalk,” she said in a forced, singsong voice. “I’m afraid it shattered. He’ll need a new piece.”
Back at her desk, Alma tried to catch up with Asku, but her thoughts refused taming. How dare this new boy dislike her so! They’d only just met yesterday. And she’d been nothing but nice to him and the other newcomers. Asku was right; the boy was an imbecile. Yet she couldn’t stop staring.
Supplied with a fresh piece of chalk, George continued his stoic protest. After instructing him once again on his assignment, Miss Wells grew impatient. Her cheeks flamed with color; her words became clipped.
“Insolence in this classroom will not be tolerated.” She grabbed George by his suit collar and pulled him to his feet. Alma saw his hands clench into fists, then slowly release. Though he was nearly the same size as the teacher, he let her tug him to the back of the room. She kicked his feet together and forced his arms out like a scarecrow. To Alma’s surprise, he did not resist.
“There. Now you’re to remain in this position until the end of class.”
George smirked.
“Oh, one more thing.” Miss Wells turned to Alice, who sat three desks over from Alma and Asku in the back row. “Alice, please retrieve two prayer missals from the bookshelf.”
Alice hesitated, but a withering look from Miss Wells brought her to her feet. She delivered the heavy volumes to Miss Wells, flashing George an apologetic grimace before returning to her seat.
Miss Wells thrust a book into each of George’s hands. Sinew bulged at his wrists. His outstretched arms teetered. Alma braced herself, expecting any moment for him to throw the books loudly to the ground. But he did not.
“Faces forward, students,” Miss Wells said. “Back to your studies.”
Fifty-four grim faces turned forward. Chalk murmured against slate. Textbook pages fluttered. Behind her, Alma could hear George’s breath growing labored as the minutes ticked by. Halfway through her assignment, she stole a look back in his direction. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His skin flushed deep red; his outstretched arms trembled. His expression, however, remained composed, his stare fixed and determined.
Alma shook her head and turned back to her equations. Eventually he would break, if not today, then tomorrow, and be better for it in the end.
CHAPTER 15
Minnesota, 1906
“Beautiful building, isn’t it?” Asku’s lawyer, Mr. Gates, hopped up the steps to hold the door.
Alma looked up. She had to hold her hat in place and tilt her head all the way back to see the crest of the red-tile roof five stories above.
Mr. Gates smiled, displaying a neat row of small, yellowed teeth. “Brand new, you know. Laid the last stone only four years ago.”
Stewart tarried street side, neck craned, mouth slightly agape. In his upturned eyes, Alma saw that glimmer of boyish glee. It infected her, pulled at the corners of her lips, just as it had the first time she saw it, early in their courtship when he’d invited her to the symphony. They never made it to the concert hall, waylaid by every building of architectural merit along the way. Structure, proportion, angulation—these words had meant nothing to Alma, nor held any particular interest. But the tenor of his voice was as pleasing as any orchestra, and his face, more animated than yet she’d seen, stirred in her a common delight.
It’d been so long since she’d felt anything like it. The emotion lightened her step like a strong wine. “Perhaps you should have been an engineer or architect,” she remarked between Broad Street Station and the Academy of the Fine Arts building.
He smiled, his cheeks lit with a touch of embarrassment. “In fact, patent law is much like the two. . . .” And from there went on to explain with similar rapture the care and invention it required. At some point he took her hand and held it in the crook of his arm—she didn’t notice precisely when, only that it had felt right resting there.