The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1) (14 page)

N
one too
patiently, Geoff waited for the nurse to bring Doctor Philips to the telephone.
When he finally heard the older man’s calm voice, Geoff’s words poured out in a
deluge of panic –
vomit, blood, pain.
My wife. My wife!

“Yes, so she is
experiencing spontaneous abortion, just as I thought,” Doctor Philips replied.
“Usually, there’s only mild bleeding, but with Mrs. Kinner’s pregnancy having
reached four months, some vomiting and cramping should be expected.”

Geoff heard
Emmeline retching in the bathroom. His blood pressure rose rapidly. “So what do
you recommend we do, Doctor?”

“Do? There’s
nothing to do, Mr. Kinner.” Doctor Philips sighed. “I
am
sorry for the
loss. But, as I told your wife last week, I expected this unhappy conclusion.”

“There’s
a
lot
of blood, Doctor!” Geoff couldn’t stop himself. “I don’t think this is
normal. Emmeline is very ill!” Didn’t the man understand? Geoff wasn’t just
worried about the loss of the baby; he was concerned about his wife!

“Sometimes the
body retains some of the tissue if the pregnancy is of a two-month duration or
longer. Then, she may need a minor surgical procedure to stop the bleeding and
prevent infection.”

“A surgical
procedure?” Just when Geoff had thought it couldn’t get any worse.

“Yes. Actually,
I’m going to refer you to a specialist, just to be on the safe side. Doctor
Samuel Giorgi. You may know him already.”

Sam? Of course,
Geoff knew him; Sam and his son had attended First Baptist for a few years now.
The Kinners had hosted them for dinner several times. “Yes, of course,” replied
Geoff. “We know him from church.”

“Good. You’ll be
comfortable with him, then. As you may know, Doctor Giorgi is the foremost
gynecological surgeon in this region. You’ll be in good hands with him. Let me
give you his office telephone number. See if he can get you in today.”

Leaden-fingered,
Geoff penciled down Sam’s office phone number. He would call the specialist as
soon as he let the school know that he wouldn’t be in today.

And I’m
cancelling that choir. I can’t concentrate on something so inconsequential when
Emmeline needs me so much.

“S
ay, Grace, did
you hear?”

Paulie’s
grinning face appeared just to the right of her locker. Somehow, he seemed to materialize
wherever Grace was. And Grace found herself blushing worse than an
apple-blossom tree whenever the dimple-cheeked boy did materialize.
I wish
he would go away!

Maybe he
wouldn’t see how red her cheeks got if she kept her face hidden in the depths
of the metal cubby. Conveniently, Grace found that her pencil case required
immediate attention. She set it on the narrow shelf inside the locker and began
to straighten its contents, not even glancing at Paulie.
If I don’t answer
him, maybe he’ll leave.
She lined up her pencils so that the erasers lay
snugly together.

But Paulie
wasn’t in any hurry to leave, heedless of Grace’s silence and total absorption
in her pencil case. After a few moments, Grace looked in Paulie’s direction
from the corner of her eye. There he still stood, tanned forearm leaning up
against the locker next to hers, eyes sparkling like hot caramel, his usual
wide grin toned down to a serious smile. He would’ve looked like a young
Hollywood heart-throb in one of Nancy’s magazines if it weren’t for the slight
meaty scent on his breath.
He must’ve had bologna for lunch
, thought Grace,
a little envy spreading shoots inside her.

He’s not gonna
leave unless I talk to him.
Hoping her face had cooled, Grace turned toward
Paulie, keeping her hands in the pencil case for safety. “Hear what?” she
asked, her heart gaveling against her chest. Her eyes dropped down for just a
fraction of a second to make sure the pounding wasn’t shaking her blouse
visibly.

“Mr. K. dropped
the choir.” Paulie grimaced. “It’s a real letdown, huh?”

Grace’s tongue
lay paralyzed. For several seconds, she stared at Paulie, mouth open as a trout’s.
Then she realized how she must look and clapped her lips together. A moment
later, she managed, “W-W-Why?”

Paulie shrugged,
his thick shoulders rising and falling with easy confidence. “Don’t know yet.
Mr. Jeffries told me on my way inside this morning.”

Grace’s heart
fell into her ankles. It must be true, then, if Paulie had gotten the news straight
from Mr. Jeffries. Proud of being born on the day the Civil War ended, bow-legged
Mr. Jeffries was the principal of Chetham High School. “Why’d Mr. Jeffries tell
you?” she couldn’t help asking. Why did Paulie get first dibs on info from the
principal?

He shrugged
again. “I asked him if he knew why Mr. K. was in such a hurry yesterday. He got
all tight-lipped but then he let that leak out about the choir.” Paulie folded
his arms across his chest – but Grace noticed how the gesture didn’t make him
seem like a tough guy.
Just… Just… manly,
she decided, then bit her lip,
glad that he couldn’t read her thoughts.

“I sure was
looking forward to it,” he added.

Grace nodded and
turned back to her pencil box. “Yeah, so was I,” she said.

Really, Grace? Were
you planning on going back after what happened last night with Mama?
Her fingers
felt the smooth wood of the pencils as they rolled about the box.

Yeah, I was. I
really was.
The clarity of the thought scared her, froze her fingers in mid-caress.
I
was going back.
Her index finger and thumb pinched one of the pencils until
the skin under her fingernails turned bloodless white.
No matter what Mama
said, I was going back to the choir.

She knew why,
too: Her brother Ben’s words kept vigil in her mind, haunting her in the early
hours of the morning when her bedroom was so cold and empty. They whispered comfort
when she brought the buckets out to milk Bessie in the gloaming; they sang to
her as she worked on homework late into the night.
We’re all in the gutter,
but some of us are looking at the stars
, he’d said.
His eyes, so
serious and sad in that darkened barn, pleading with her:
Promise me, canary
bird. Promise me that you won’t settle…

The tears
brimmed before Grace knew what had happened. Panicked to think that Paulie
might glimpse her outbreak of emotion, she stuffed her head further into the
locker, not taking into account her now-violently trembling hands. The pencil
box clattered off the locker shelf, its contents scattering in a five-foot
radius all around Grace. Humiliating as it was, she half-welcomed the
diversion. She dropped to her knees to pick up the pencils, feeling the solid
tile chilling her skin where her stockings had drooped.

Paulie was
beside her in an instant. “Here, lemme help,” he said, and his hands pooled the
pencils with a few quick swipes. Grace’s icicle fingers brushed against his
warm ones; she knew he didn’t notice it, but she sure did. Of course, she was
forced to acknowledge it with a face full of fresh floridity.

With a grin
turning up his mouth, Paulie poured his handful of pencils into her box and
stood to his feet. He grabbed Grace’s elbow as he rose, helping her up as well.
She jerked away from him as soon as she regained her footing, the unaccustomed
courtesy making her feel awkward.

Paulie looked
surprised at her repulsion. Surprised, and Grace thought, just a smidgen hurt. She
tucked a piece of hair behind her ear to cover her embarrassment. A brief
expression of confusion seemed to hover on his face for just an instant, but
then he replaced it with his usual cheery smile. The bell shrilled above their
heads. “Well, I’m off to World History,” Paulie said, hefting his books under
the crook of his arm. “See you later, Grace.”

She nodded, so
many feelings – some familiar and most completely new - roiling inside her, and
watched the springy figure retreat down the hall.

“M
r. Kinner has
taken a leave of absence.” The rookie substitute shifted from one leg to
another. Paulie noticed that the young man – he couldn’t be more than
twenty-one – had a very twitchy mouth. Maybe he wasn’t sure whether he should
smile to show he was good-natured or if he should frown to show how stern he
would be if anyone dared to disobey him.

“Who is this
guy?” Toby Simmons whispered in Paulie’s ear from the desk behind him, spraying
Paulie with a light mist of saliva.

Paulie grimaced
and wiped his neck. Why did Toby have to have a space between his front teeth
and
an overbite to rival a beaver’s?

“Oops, sorry,
Paulie,” Toby muttered.

Paulie wished he
hadn’t wiped his neck so conspicuously. He turned his head a bit to offer Toby
a grin. “Forget it, Tobes. And I don’t know who the sub is,” he whispered.

“Wish Mr. K. was
here,” Toby murmured.

Paulie nodded,
his eyes turned back toward the front. “So do I.”

The substitute
wobbled over to the blackboard lining the classroom wall, picked up a thin
piece of chalk with shaky fingers, and began to scrawl something on the black
expanse. Only, the chalk broke halfway through, falling on the floor in several
unusable pieces. The classroom broke out into laughter as the man turned a
red-and-white face back toward them. “Class! Class!” he emitted in a strained
voice, and Paulie felt pity for the poor man as he grasped for authority that
he hadn’t earned.

Without
bothering to raise his hand (It wouldn’t have done much good since the whole
class rollicked with laughter.), Paulie jumped up from his desk and headed for
the front of the room. He’d taken out the box of spare chalk from Mr. Kinner’s
desk before the substitute could protest. “Here you are,” he smiled, offering
the box.

The young man
took it from Paulie with a stiff little nod. “Thank you,” he answered. “You can
take a seat now.”

Paulie grinned
again and headed back to his desk. On his way, he noticed Ruth Ann passing a
note to Grace again. He glanced back over his shoulder at the substitute.
Hope
he doesn’t catch them.

The substitute
had busied himself with writing his name on the blackboard, however. He seemed
oblivious to all else but his own quest to obliterate the students’ memories of
his mishaps by means of impressing them with his elaborate cursive.

“I am Mr.
Crookshank,” the substitute announced, turning back to the class. His cheeks
glowed with the triumph of having written his name. “I will be your teacher
until Mr. Kinner returns.”

Two rows over
from Paulie, freckle-faced Gerry Turnbull raised his hand. “When’s Kinner
coming back?” he asked, chomping hard on a wad of bubblegum.

Mr. Crookshank’s
lips tightened. “He has taken a leave of absence for the time being. That is
all you need to know, Mr…?”

“Oh, Turnbull,
sir. Gerry Turnbull,” replied Gerry, happily smacking away at that gum.

“Mr. Turnbull.
You will refer to your absent teacher as
Mr.
Kinner. And you will please
dispose of that disgraceful chewing gum
immediately.
” The substitute
seemed to be gaining his academic sea-legs by force.

He must’ve known
he made a bad first-impression and is trying to fix it now,
figured Paulie,
sitting back. The substitute surveyed the classroom coolly, his eyes raking
each student. Suddenly, his gaze stopped near the back of the room to Paulie’s
right.

Oh, no. He
caught them.

Sure enough, Mr.
Crookshank strode toward Grace and Ruth Ann. Ruth Ann saw him coming before Grace
did. She shrank back and pretended to be flipping through her literature book.
When Mr. Crookshank came to a halt in front of Grace’s desk, she still was
reading the note Ruth Ann had passed her.

Whack!

The ruler fell
across Grace’s hands with a force that made Paulie wince. She hadn’t expected
it; the note bounced out of her hands onto the floor, and her head jolted up to
stare at Mr. Crookshank. From his seat, Paulie could see the deep red marks the
ruler had left on Grace’s white fingers. Crimson rose in his own face as he
bent his eyes to stare at his desk.

“Well,” Mr.
Crookshank stated, a glimmer in his eye, “I can see we have our work cut out
for us in the next few weeks. Bubble-gum chewing, disrespect, passing notes,”
he listed, giving extra emphasis to the last action as if it was truly
diabolical. “I thought I was here to teach English literature, but I see that I
truly have been hired to instruct this class in manners.”

“Oh boy,”
muttered Toby in Paulie’s ear. Paulie didn’t dare answer.

Mr. Crookshank
still hovered over Grace, who had drawn her shaking hands into her lap. “For
how can we expect to appreciate the heights of taste and culture, to mine the
depths of Cowper, Shakespeare, Dickens, and…” His voice trailed off. Amidst the
creak of desk chairs, Paulie shifted to see what had caught Mr. Crookshank’s
attention.