Journey, The (12 page)

Michelle smiled and sighed. She put the exercise sheet on Shelly's desktop.

"That's good. I thought you would. I think you'll get the second answer, too, even though it does not require a formula and is not something you'll find in any textbook," Michelle said. She paused until she again had Shelly's eyes. "If the Barracuda, traveling 135 miles per hour, hits an oncoming vehicle, then the Barracuda doesn't catch the Trans Am at all. Several people are killed and a beautiful young woman never gets to make her mark on the world."

Michelle paused for a moment to let her words sink in but quickly saw that the pause was not necessary. Tears from flooded eyes rolled down Shelly's cheeks. When the girl turned away in an apparent attempt to hide her face, Michelle reached out and put a hand on her arm.

"April and I had a nice visit yesterday while we did our laundry. She told me all about your adventure Friday night."

"Did she tell you that I peed my pants?" Shelly asked, laughing through tears.

"She did! She mentioned that first."

Both women laughed so hard that they nearly fell out of their chairs. When they collected themselves, Michelle sat up straight, returned her hand to Shelly's arm and leaned closer to the student. She looked at her thoughtfully and smiled.

"April cares about you, Shelly. I do too. A lot of people do. Please tell me you'll exercise better judgment in the future."

"I will," Shelly said, wiping her eyes. "I promise."

Michelle glanced at the clock on the wall and then at her friend.

"You should probably get to practice. I don't think Mrs. Thompson accepts tardy notes from girls with the Hong Kong flu."

Shelly smiled.

"No, she doesn't."

Shelly finished drying her eyes and then threw her books and papers in a backpack. She got up from her chair and walked halfway to the door before turning around.

"Thank you, Miss Jennings . . . Michelle," she said in a soft voice. Her eyes projected deep affection. "I wish I could talk to my mother this way."

"You will," Michelle said. "Someday you will."

As Shelly walked out of the classroom, Michelle turned away from the door and stared out a window to the empty courtyard. She thought again about the wisdom of interfering in the lives of others and asked whether she was doing the right thing. No one had pulled
her
aside in her senior year and steered her in more positive directions. But the more she thought about the encounter with Shelly, the better she felt. She loved making a difference, and she loved making a difference in the life of this young woman.

"Well done."

Michelle jumped in her seat at the sound of the voice. She turned to face the owner of the voice and saw a man at the door, a man with a clipboard, a coffee mug, and a warm smile.

"You startled me."

"I'm sorry. It's a habit of mine."

"There's no need to apologize. I'm the trespasser."

"Then perhaps I should report you. But first I must commend you. That was quite a show," Robert Land said. "I could not have done better myself."

"How long have you been lurking in the shadows?"

Robert laughed.

"I'd say about five minutes now, long enough to witness a breakthrough. You accomplished in three minutes what I have been unable to do in three years and threw in a life lesson to boot. You're good. You belong in a classroom, not an attendance office."

"Thank you. That's very kind."

"It's not kind. It's the truth," Robert said. "I've taught here for twenty-five years and have rarely seen that kind of interaction between a teacher and a student. A lot of instructors would just as soon run off to practice or do something else than spend even five minutes with a kid. What you did restores a lot of my faith in public education."

"Well, thank you again."

Robert walked to his desk, sat in his padded swivel chair, and pulled open a file drawer. He grabbed a few sheets from a folder and added them to the clipboard before walking around to the front of this desk. He sat on the Formica top, took a sip of coffee, and studied the trespasser.

Michelle laughed.

"I must look pretty funny, sitting in one of the student desks."

"On the contrary, you look like someone who's eager to learn."

"Is the math teacher teaching an extra class today?"

"Unfortunately, I am not. I am off to teach running backs how to hit the right holes and hold onto a football like it's their baby sister."

Michelle smiled.

"Perhaps I can take a rain check on some after-school instruction."

"Perhaps you can," Robert said. "In the meantime, perhaps the
student
can help the teacher solve a story problem. It is one that has stumped him for weeks."

Michelle sat up in her chair, folded her hands, and wiggled the toes popping out of her sandals.

"Fire away."

"OK," Robert said. "But I must warn you. This is a particularly difficult problem. It involves a teacher and requires an open mind and a few calculations but not a lot of algebra."

"That's even better."

"This teacher is a good teacher. He has done his job for many years and won several awards. He also coaches football and baseball. He has been known to play poker, smoke an occasional cigar, and fish for steelhead on Sunday mornings when he should be in church. But he is a lonely teacher, one who has grown tired of eating alone night after night and who very much desires the company of a thoughtful, intelligent, attractive woman."

"This sounds serious."

"It is very serious."

"So what's the problem?"

Robert put his coffee mug aside and got off his desk. He walked to Shelly's chair, sat down next to Michelle, and looked at her thoughtfully.

"How many times must this teacher, the one who plays poker and smokes cigars, ask the new attendance secretary to dinner before she says yes?"

Michelle beamed.

"Just once."

CHAPTER 22: MICHELLE

Thursday, November 1, 1979

Michelle had been to the best restaurants in Seattle, Washington, and some of the best on the West Coast, but, in her mind, even those with three-figure entries and wine lists the length of yardsticks could not compare to the local secret near the corner of Second and Main.

Wedged between a bank and an antique store, the Bull Rider looked like the offspring of an English pub and a saddle shop. Spurs, lassoes, cattle skulls, and rodeo photos hung from barn wood paneling in its windowless dining area. Four chandeliers and candles atop ten tables provided customers and staff with limited illumination. Only patrons requesting a long table in the back of the room were able to form parties larger than four.

But the delectable products from a hidden kitchen more than made up for the restaurant's physical imperfections. The Bull Rider served the best prime rib between Portland and Boise and memories that only a time traveler could appreciate.

Michelle pondered both as she took in her dinner and remembered the many times she had come here her senior year, including this very evening. Not twenty minutes after Robert Land had escorted the former Michelle Preston into the restaurant, Scott Richardson had escorted the current Michelle Preston out – a transition that had not gone unnoticed by either couple.

Shelly had made the most of the encounter by introducing Scott to the attendance secretary he knew only by reputation. The couples had visited for ten minutes before Robert, Unionville's offensive coordinator, reminded Scott that the Cowboys had a big game with Hermiston on Friday night and that his star quarterback needed to hit the sack early. Seemingly eager to please his coach, and perhaps score points with his date, Scott had not objected.

Michelle had suggested dinner over the weekend, but Friday's game and Robert's plans to hunt deer on Saturday and Sunday had put Thursday in play. She didn't mind. She considered any night that involved sitting at a table with this interesting man a good night.

"It's too bad you're leaving this weekend," she said as she dipped a chunk of prime rib in horseradish sauce. "I had big plans to take you to the community theater Saturday night.
The Taming of the Shrew
is playing through next week."

"I must say that that sounds more appealing than trudging through the mud and freezing my extremities. If I weren't hunting with my old college roommate, I would have opted out. This is an annual thing for the two of us."

"So you're not a weekend warrior?"

"I'm afraid not, unless you count only one weekend a year. This is one of those male bonding things," Robert said. He smiled and took a sip from his wine glass. "What about you? You seem to enjoy the outdoors, or at least walking around town. Are you a sportsman?"

"I love to camp and hike, but hunting has never been my thing."

"I see."

Michelle noted his puzzled expression and saw that he didn't see.

"I don't have a problem with hunters or hunting and, as you can see, I am quite the carnivore. It's the killing I can't do."

"Have you ever gone hunting?"

"I went once. My dad took me when I was sixteen. It was one of those father-daughter things that fathers do when they no longer have sons in the house. We accompanied two couples from our church to a spot not far from here."

"What happened?"

"I chickened out."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"On the morning of the second day, I had my chance. I had a four-point buck in my sights, eighty yards out. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't pull the trigger. Sparing a mule deer trumped pleasing my father," Michelle said. "I was so ashamed. He had bought a Winchester M70 just for the trip, just for me. But I couldn't do something that people do every day, something my dad and brothers and even my sister had been able to do on more than one occasion."

"I think you're being a bit hard on yourself."

"Maybe. I know I don't regret the decision. I would have never forgiven myself for taking that deer. But I've never felt good about that day either. I failed a test. As an educator, I'm sure you can understand the significance of that."

"I can."

"In any case, it's ancient history and my problem, not yours. I hope you have an enjoyable weekend with your friend," Michelle said as a smile spread across her face. "Just know that I will be rooting for Bambi."

Robert laughed.

"The way I shoot I think he'll have a sporting chance."

Michelle raised her glass of red wine.

"Here's to sporting chances," she said.

"To sporting chances," Robert said, as he brought his glass to hers, "and to a rain check on
The Taming of the Shrew
."

As Michelle studied her dinner partner, she could not help but notice that the man in the restaurant was the same as the man in the classroom. Robert brought intelligence, grace, and a sense of humor to both places, in addition to a level of humility that she found refreshing and appealing. While Scott had had his plusses, humility was not among them.

Robert did not say much in the next few minutes. Apparently content to leave the sensitive subject of hunting in the past, he turned his attention to his own prime rib dinner and to a bottle of merlot that they had barely dented. But it wasn't long before he drifted back to Michelle's past with questions she had long been prepared to answer.

"You mentioned two brothers and a sister," he said. "What was it like growing up in a large family?"

"It was lonely. Fred, Angela, and Eddie were all out the door before I entered junior high. For all practical purposes, I was an only child."

"This was in Seattle?"

"We lived in Bellevue. It's a bedroom community east of Seattle."

"I know it well. My college roommate, the one who will help me stalk Bambi this weekend, is from Bellevue. He is a principal there. It's a beautiful area."

"It is."

Michelle patted herself on the back for seamlessly combining the truth with a lie. She had indeed grown up, mostly alone, as the youngest of four children and had spent more than a few quality years in the suburban wilds of King County. But her childhood home was not in Bellevue, Washington, but rather a nondescript rambler a dozen blocks away. Wishing to steer clear of more pointed questions, at least for a while, she turned the spotlight on Robert.

"What about you? Do you have any siblings?"

"I have an older brother, David."

"Does he live around here?"

"He used to. He's been gone about twenty years. He landed a job with one of the oil companies and lives in Houston now, though he spends a great deal of time overseas. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, he's in Iran right now."

Michelle felt her stomach turn as she processed Robert's words. She knew that the Iranian hostage crisis had started during the fall of her senior year, but she couldn't remember precisely when. She recalled only that news of the embassy takeover had coincided with a family event, something that meant very little then but took on a lot more relevance now.

"Is he there on business?"

"He is. He travels to the Persian Gulf six or seven times a year. He spends more time there, it seems, than he does at home, but he enjoys the work," Robert said. "One of these days, I may join him. I haven't done much traveling and would like to see that part of the world."

Michelle smiled thinly and feigned interest as she tried to mentally balance a conversation with solving a problem. She scolded herself for not remembering more about one of the biggest news events of her adolescence and searched her memory for meaningful information.

"He's not actually in Tehran now, is he?"

"I believe he is. He called me several days ago from Bahrain and said he had some business to conclude at the embassy this week. He's a good friend of one of the administrative officers and an acquaintance of the new chargé d'affaires."

The French term for acting ambassador did the trick. Within seconds memories of a long ago anniversary came flooding back. Michelle recalled the day Fred and Evelyn Preston had planned to spend in Paris but had instead spent in Unionville. They had invited dozens of friends to help them celebrate thirty years of marriage on Sunday, November 4, 1979. But many of their guests had spent less time around a cake than around a living room television, where they learned the first details of a crisis that would consume the nation for 444 days.