Day by Day (7 page)

She rang the bell at Miss Damm’s door on the fourth floor twice. No response. She tried twice again, but no one answered. It was not like Miss Damm to forget an appointment, but she was hard of hearing and wore two hearing aids. Judy sighed and decided to go back down to the office again and try calling before moving on to the next appointment with Mrs. Thompson. If Miss Damm was not wearing her hearing aids, she would not hear the doorbell, but she might hear the extraloud bell on her telephone.

If Judy had a cell phone, she would have been able to call from where she stood, but a cell phone was out of the question, along with any hopes for a new winter coat this year. Brian needed an entire winter wardrobe. She retraced her steps, with her quarters jingling in her pocket, and walked back to the elevator that arrived before she had a chance to push the call button. Oddly, the elevator was
empty, and she rode back down to the first floor hoping and praying Miss Damm was home and would hear her telephone.

Penny tried calling Miss Damm’s apartment. No answer. She tried again. “Still no answer. I know she’s here. She stopped in this morning for a package the mailman left and said she was going back to her apartment to wait for you. No problem,” she said and jangled a set of keys she retrieved from a drawer. “I’ll go up and let you in. She probably fell asleep watching television.”

“I don’t think I heard the television,” Judy countered as she followed Penny to the elevator.

Penny pushed the call button. “She keeps the volume turned down. Don’t ask me why. I haven’t a clue.” When they got to the apartment, Penny rang the bell several times before opening the door with her master key.

Looking over Penny’s shoulder, Judy could see the television. The screen flickered with life, but there was no sound. Miss Damm was lying in her recliner, apparently sound asleep. Penny had been right, but how she knew all the little idiosyncrasies of the residents still mystified Judy.

“She’s asleep. Just like I thought,” Penny whispered and approached the brown vinyl recliner with gentle steps. “Miss Damm? It’s Penny. Judy’s here to do your hair. Miss Damm?”

While Penny tried to wake the elderly woman, Judy held back and stayed just inside the door. When Penny looked up at Judy, the ashen look on her face confirmed an odd premonition that Miss Damm had slept her way from this world to the next.

“Call 911. There’s a telephone in the kitchen. Hurry. She’s still breathing, but I think she’s suffered a stroke.”

The next half hour was a blur of sirens, paramedics, police and fire personnel, who routinely responded to all emergency calls, and hosts of residents who filled the corridor and filed down to the Gossip Garden to share whatever they had been able to see or hear. After Miss Damm had been placed into an ambulance and peace had been restored to the Towers, Judy was not surprised when Mrs. Thompson canceled her appointment. She was simply too upset about her neighbor and friend to have her hair cut.

A bit shaken, Judy stored her canvas bag back in the office while Penny listened to the telephone messages that had been left in her absence. She called out when Judy started to leave. “There was another call from Mrs. Worth for you. She says it’s urgent.”

Judy stopped and checked her watch. “It’s only two-thirty. I suppose I could call her back now. I don’t have to go back to the salon to do more than clean up,” she murmured, although she had half a mind to make the woman wait until morning, just on principle, pun intended. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to be the bigger person. Can I use your telephone?”

“Sure. Use the one in Patricia’s office. She’s not in today.”

Judy went into the assistant manager’s office, found the telephone and punched in the number for the school. This time, the secretary put her call right through to the principal.

“I’m afraid you need to come to school right away,” she urged.

Instead of panicking as she had the last time, Judy forced herself to remain calm. “If it’s about the counseling
for Brian, that’s all been arranged. I’ve met with your guidance counselor and his first appointment with a private counselor is already scheduled for five o’clock this afternoon. If it’s about another picture he’s drawn—”

“No. It’s not about the counseling or another picture. I wish it were.”

Judy’s pulse began to race. “Is he sick?”

“No, he’s not sick or injured. He’s been in a fight. I have one of the other children’s parents here with me now, and the other one is on the way. I’m hoping you can join us momentarily. Otherwise, Brian will be suspended from school, and he will not be permitted to return until you can arrange to meet with me.”

Judy swallowed hard. “Suspended? He’s only in first grade,” she grumbled. “Since when does a six-year-old get suspended from school?”

“When that six-year-old gets involved in a fight. We have a zero tolerance policy for bullying behavior.”

“I’m on my way,” Judy murmured. She hung up the telephone and shook her head. Two weeks of school. Two different problems. Two summonses to the school. Maybe a suspension for fighting or bullying. “I wonder where he learned that,” she whispered, seeing Duke’s image in her mind’s eye, and shoving it away.

At this rate, Brian might break his mother’s poor school discipline record before he reached his seventh birthday! “If I survive that long. There’s a reason why God made mothers young. Some grand mother I’m turning out to be,” she grumbled and headed off to answer her summons to the school.

Again.

N
o panic. No fear. Only a dreadful sense of déjà vu.

Judy climbed the front steps of Park Elementary School with her mind playing flashbacks of raising her daughter. Candy had partied hard, fought hard and rebelled her way through high school and graduated next to last in the Class of 1987, but at the top of the list of students with discipline infractions.

Judy reached the top step and took a deep breath. When it came to her own child’s outrageous behavior in high school, she had passed embarrassment and humiliation a long time ago. By learning to distance herself, to separate the child from the behavior and the parent’s responsibilities from the child’s obligations, she had managed to survive with her own sense of worth only slightly bruised and battered. Would she be able to do the same with Brian?

She had a good idea of what lay waiting for her inside the principal’s office. Still, the process was never pleasant.
She was also certain she was about to face down a pair of professionals and a pair of parents young enough to be her own children, all of whom were educated far beyond her own high school diploma and license as a hairdresser. She squared her shoulders and reached for the door.

“Judy? Wait!”

She turned and saw Barbara Montgomery rushing up the steps. Sunshine danced in the highlights of her hair, a casual, yet elegant layered cut now, but misery and panic shadowed her face. When she reached the top step, she held on to the railing and stopped to catch her breath.

“Sorry. The car…is in for repairs…. I closed my shop…and ran here as fast as I could in heels.” She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “Are you here about the fight, too?”

Judy frowned. “I’m afraid so, but please don’t tell me the twins were involved.”

Barbara’s eyes filled with tears. “Only Jessie, but I think Melanie was there. She’s too timid to fight. She wouldn’t argue with her own shadow.” She groaned. “I’ve never been called to school before. Not once. The boys were always so good at school, but these girls are going to be a whole different story, I guess. This is terribly embarrassing.”

“You didn’t get into a fight. Jessie did. Keep that in mind. It’ll help. Trust me, I know,” Judy assured her.

“I’m sorry Brian was involved, but I’m awfully glad you’re here,” Barbara said. “Facing the principal will be hard enough, considering she’s a paragon that the administration lured away from another district this year. The other parent is bound to be a thirty-something, career-building powerhouse. Or a stay-at-home soccer mom whose husband has
a six-figure income, while she’s a combination of Mother Earth, sultry siren and last year’s finalist for Mother of the Year.”

Barbara shook her head. “They’re going to take one look at me and assume because I’m a grandmother, I’m too old to be raising two six-year-olds effectively. I might think I’m too old once in a while, but I defy anyone else to think it.”

Judy looped her arm with Barbara’s. “I’d like to see them try. There’s safety in numbers and power, too. We’re not just grandmothers. We’re grand mothers,” she whispered, sharing the gift Mrs. Edwards had given to her. “Let’s go inside and prove it.”

Barbara sniffed. When she reached into her purse for a tissue, she eased out of Judy’s hold. “Grand mothers. I like the sound of that,” she said and dabbed at her eyes.

“Me, too.”

“Okay, I think I’m ready now. I’m not sure I’m up to doing this. It’s been a week since John talked with Detective Sanger, and there’s still no news about whether or not they’re going to arrest those two girls and charge them with Steve’s death. Maybe if I didn’t have that on my mind, I wouldn’t be so anxious about being called up to the school. Thanks, Judy. I really needed a friend right now.”

“Me, too,” Judy repeated and led Barbara into the school. When they arrived at the principal’s small office, the secretary ushered them to the door of an adjoining conference room. “Mrs. Worth wanted to meet with the adults involved in here. The children are all with Mrs. Booth, the guidance counselor, in her office. They’ll be joining you later, after your meeting,” she explained and opened the door.

Judy stepped inside, studied the positions of the two
women seated at the long, rectangular table, and assumed the woman seated at the head was Mrs. Worth, the principal. Perfectly coiffed and made up, she wore a navy-blue power suit that had to be tailor-made. Mrs. Worth could not be a day over thirty, yet she looked every inch the capable administrator Barbara had mentioned earlier.

Judy’s heart sank to her knees as she eased into a chair. Across the table, the other woman met Judy’s gaze and offered a brief, tenuous smile. The fact that the woman sat opposite Barbara and Judy implied that she was the parent of the child who had been bullied, but Judy tried not to leap to conclusions or allow the slightest hope to rise that Brian had been the injured party here. The woman was even vaguely familiar. Judy could not place her. She assumed she had just seen her about in town. Returning the woman’s smile, she looked at her closely. Her heart skipped. Another grandmother? Or was she?

At first glance, the woman appeared to be much younger than either Judy or Barbara. She was small and petite and wore a trendy pink-and-black ruffled blouse. Her straight blond hair was long and loose. The fluorescent light caught the rhinestone chips glued to her bright pink nails, and she wore enough gold jewelry to pay for Brian’s winter clothes.

When Judy looked closer, the laugh lines in the corners of the woman’s eyes, the creases at each end of her lips, and the wrinkles on her face and neck put her well into middle age. Another grandmother?

Maybe.

Probably.

Feeling more than a little relieved, Judy caught Barbara’s gaze and smiled.

Mrs. Worth started the introductions and finished with the other woman. “Mrs. King…Ginger…is here on behalf of her grandson, Vincent. He’s in third grade, and he’s also new to the school, like Brian and Jessie and Melanie, although he probably won’t be staying here for more than another few weeks.”

Another grandmother.

Judy relaxed against the back of her chair.

“But Melanie isn’t really involved,” Barbara asserted.

“Not directly. No,” Mrs. Worth admitted, “but we’ve included her because she was caught up in the incident.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry we all have to meet one another under such difficult circumstances, but I’m certain we can resolve today’s problem if we all work together.”

Her voice was firm, but gentle and calm, unlike the voice Judy remembered from her telephone conversation.

“I’ve talked to all of the children myself, individually and collectively, as well as the two lunch aides who were supervising the children. Here’s what I’ve been able to learn. Apparently, all of the children were outside in the playground after lunch. Jessie and Melanie were playing hopscotch with some of the other girls. Vincent had brought out a little sketch pad and pencil. He was sitting nearby, drawing away and minding his own business when Brian came up and demanded to see the sketch pad.”

“Brian admitted this?” Judy asked, although she suspected he had.

Mrs. Worth nodded. “He did. To me and to the counselor. When Vincent refused, Brian grabbed the sketch pad
and ran off, charging right into Melanie. They both fell to the ground, with Brian on top. Jessie rose to her sister’s defense and tried to pull Brian off. Then Vincent jumped into the melee to retrieve his sketch pad. There was a lot of yelling, some kicking and punching and name-calling. Inadvertently or not, I can’t be sure, Vincent elbowed Brian in the process, as well.”

“Then it’s Brian’s fault, clear and simple,” Judy offered, hoping to take some of the wind out of Mrs. Worth’s account by acknowledging Brian’s guilt. “That’s something I will take care of with him.”

“I didn’t realize Vincent didn’t share well, I’m afraid. That’s a concern to me. I’m not sure if I’ve ever even seen him with a sketch pad, though,” Ginger admitted.

Barbara shrugged. “I’m probably not aware of half of what the twins do or don’t do, or what they have or they don’t have. They rely on one another a great deal. Jessie is the more dominant of the two, and she’s very protective, so it doesn’t surprise me that she rushed to help her sister. I can’t condone kicking and name-calling, though.”

“All in all, it sounds like a typical school-yard incident to me,” Judy suggested. “None of the children were hurt, right?”

“No,” Mrs. Worth admitted. “Just a few scrapes and crushed egos, and a few of the bystanders were frightened. I had the nurse check everyone out, but you’re all welcome to have each child seen by his or her pediatrician, if you think it’s warranted.”

Ginger frowned. “I don’t think so, but I’d like to see Vincent first.”

Barbara and Judy added their agreement, but Judy was
still confused by the tone and content of the telephone call she had received from the principal. Thirty years ago, she would have let it go. Not now. “You mentioned bullying when you called,” she prompted.

The principal sat a little more erect and passed a folder to each of the three women. “Bullying behavior can be physical, verbal, emotional, or any combination of the three. That includes intimidation and using force, such as trying to take another child’s sketchbook, or name-calling, and kicking, which also happened today. In accordance with district policy guidelines, we have a zero tolerance for bullying of any kind. There is a copy of the guidelines in each of the folders, along with suggestions for activities that you can use at home to help reinforce more positive interactions between your children and the other children at school. It’s very important for children to know when their behavior crosses the line and just as important for them to learn how to properly handle an incident with a bully. Hopefully, we can put this event today behind us and prevent another one like it from occurring again.”

Judy smoothed her hand across the folder and decided against suggesting the principal had blown the whole incident out of proportion. “What now? Can I see Brian?”

“I’d like to see the girls,” Barbara said firmly.

“And Vincent,” Ginger added.

Mrs. Worth leaned back, reached for a wall phone and pressed several numbers. “Janet? Alicia Worth. Can you bring the children to the conference room now? Oh, that’s great. Thanks.” She hung up and turned her attention back to the three women at the table. “If you haven’t met Janet Booth, she’s our guidance counselor. She’s been meeting
with the children, and she assures me all is well. The children have each talked with her, and she tells me there are no hard feelings between them.”

Mrs. Worth stood up, smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from her suit jacket, smiled and handed each of them her card. “I’ll leave you alone with your children…grandchildren now. It’s almost dismissal time so you might as well take them home with you. If you have any questions or concerns, please call me. My direct line here at school is on the card, as well as my home number.”

“What about Brian? Can he stay for the after-school program today? I really should get back to the salon,” Judy explained. There was no way she could open up tomorrow, especially if Ann was still out, unless she took care of the cleanup today.

“That might not be a good idea. Overnight, the other children will probably forget all about what happened, but today…Is there any way you could take him with you?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Good. Thank you all for coming,” she said and disappeared out the door.

“Brian can come home with me,” Barbara offered.

“No. Thanks anyway. He can help me to sweep up. It might be a good chance for us to talk about what happened today.”

Ginger toyed with one of her gold bracelets for a moment. “You’ve both been very understanding. If Vincent had just shown his sketch pad to Brian, none of this would have happened. I haven’t had a child in school for more years that I want to count. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I was waiting for you, but—”

“But you didn’t expect to see people like us?” Judy asked.

Ginger raised a brow.

“Grandmothers,” Barbara suggested. “We’re both grandmothers raising our grandchildren, just like you.”

Ginger’s eyes misted. “I thought I was the only one. I just enrolled Vincent a few days ago. He started later than the other children, so I didn’t get a chance to meet any of the other…mothers. A lot of them are probably younger than my own children.”

“Well, you aren’t the only one,” Judy insisted.

The door opened, and Janet Booth stepped into the room. She closed the door behind her and introduced herself, giving Judy an extrawarm smile. “It’s good to see you again, though not under these circumstances,” she murmured. “I saw Mrs. Worth on my way here. She agreed with me that it might be better if I took you to the children. Follow me. You must be anxious to see them.”

She smiled again. “Please. Relax. And don’t worry. The children are fine, and they’ve already patched up their differences.” She hesitated and looked over her shoulder as if to make sure the door was still closed. “Look, we’ve all lived through raising our own children, and I’m confident you’ll all be able to raise your grandchildren, too,” she said as she pointed to the folders still lying on the table. “Don’t be too disturbed about what you read, but do try some of the activities. I’ve been an educator long enough to know that there are certain issues, like violence in our society, that are reflected in our schools. Sometimes those issues seem to take on a life of their own. School tragedies and lawsuits have made school districts more than a little
nervous these days. Bullying as you and I experienced it with our children years ago isn’t quite how it’s defined or interpreted these days. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be aware of or concerned about how our children or grandchildren interact with one another. We should, but in this case, I think we can safely say this whole affair was just an old-fashioned school-yard ruckus. All of the children know what they did wrong, and they’re truly sorry.”

Like the principal, she handed out her cards. “If you have any concerns, call me,” she said and opened the door. “Shall we?”